PART I

RAGE – Animal activists break into a lab to release Chimpanzees despite warnings that it will free a virus called Rage. The test chimpanzees ultimately attack the activists and give them the virus that turns them into homicidal beings.

JIM WAKES UP – 28 days later, Jim wakes up in a deserted London and searches for signs of life. Jim ends up finding a group who is already infected and they try to kill him.

SURVIVORS – Jim is rescued by Selena and Mark who bring them to their secret hideout. They tell Jim that the Rage virus spread throughout the city while he was in a coma and that “The Infected” people have led to an apocalyptic London.

JIM’S PARENTS – Jim, Mark and Selena travel to Jim’s parents house and find that his parents committed suicide. The infected discover them and Mark gets contaminated. Selena then kills him so that he doesn’t turn into one of the infected.

APARTMENT – The next day, Selena and Jim explore an apartment where there seems to be activity going on. The infected discover them and, by the instruction of a man in the apartment, head into his home while he fends off the infected. Selena and Jim spend the night there with Frank and his daughter, Hannah. The next morning, the group decides to seek out a group of soldiers who claim to have the solution to this crisis.

FRANK’S CABS – The four head out of the city and eventually reach a deserted blockade. Frank gets infected from the blood of a dripping corpse and attacks Hannah. Hiding soldiers shoot Frank and take back Jim, Selena and Hannah back to their home base.

THE HOME BASE – Jim finds out that the soldiers are planning on forcing sexual servitude on Hannah and Selena and attempts to escape the house. They’re stopped by the soldiers and Jim gets imprisoned for the night.

THE WOODS – The soldiers lead Jim into the woods to be executed and Jim is able to escape while they are distracted. Back at the house, Selena gives Hannah pills so she can be sedated if the soldiers do rape them.

JIM RETURNS – Jim runs back to the house and unleashes Mailer, an infected prisoner, that they had chained there for observation. Mailer attacks the soldiers while Jim secretly moves throughout the house to save Selena and Hannah.

THE ESCAPE – The three run out to the cab and Jim gets shot by West. Hannah takes over and pushes West toward the infected so they can all escape. They head towards the hospital to save Jim.

THE END –  28 days later, Jim wakes up in bandages. He is in a remote house and gets up to find Selena and Hannah. Hannah claims to hear a jet and the three run out to lay out a signal so they can be discovered and saved.

 

PART II 1:28:16

This shot is taken from the scene where the soldiers are stripping Selena from her clothes and arranging to have both Hannah and Selena be sexual servants wherein the soldiers will eventually rape them. This is a medium shot that places emphasis both on a soldier watching Selena be abused and the act of Selena resisting the other soldier.

The left third of the camera shows the soldier holding the dress that they presumably want Selena to wear; however, this soldier’s expression suggests shock and discomfort with the action taking place before him. The rest of the shot is the other soldier forcing Selena’s clothes off but this is all presented through the reflection of a mirror. This shot is compelling because the mirror is reflecting a full shot perspective of the action contrasting with the camera’s medium shot. There is a tense imbalance taking place here as the viewers attention is forced to switch back and forth between the mirror shot and the camera shot.

The soldier on the left is holding a luxurious red dress that sticks out in comparison to the muted whites, blacks and green in the rest of the frame. The red suggests sex and lust in the context of this scene sustaining normative ideas about what is considered attractive despite the essential collapse of society after this epidemic. The notion of racializing sexuality or sexualizing racial identity is central to this specific shot and scene. In this case, a black woman’s agency is being compromised. Her body is not shown in clear form, it is blurry and not entirely pictured. Conversely, the outline of her aggressors body is quite distinct and positioned to overpower her. The black soldier who is watching this take place looks quite uncomfortable and in a position of inferiority and powerlessness. His job is to stand back and hold the dress demonstrating compliance, but also being silenced.

PART I

THE SUICIDE OF DR. ALFRED LANNING

Spooner receives a call to go investigate what was ruled as a suicide case of Dr. Alfred Lanning. Spooner is skeptical about this case and seeks to figure out why exactly the doctor committed suicide.

 

VIKI

Spooner and Calvin investigate other employees including, VIKI, the USR supercomputer, whose recording shows no other humans were in Dr. Lanning’s office at the time of his death. This leads Spooner to believe a robot could have killed Dr. Lanning.

 

SONNY

In Lanning’s office, Spooner and Calvin are attacked by a robot and chase it down. After the police apprehend it, they discover the robot, Sonny, was specially built by Lanning himself. Sonny claims to have emotions and dreams.

 

CALVIN’S HOUSE

Spooner grows even more suspicious about the robots and tells Calvin after arriving at her apartment. Calvin insists the impossibility that robots could be behind the death of any human. Frustrated, Spooner leaves Calvin’s apartment.

 

DRIVE

While Spooner is driving, two trucks full of robots attack Spooner and forces him to crash. He defeats all the robots, except for one, which jumps into the fire and destroys itself. Despite Spooner trying to explain himself to Lt. Bergin, Bergin dismisses him from active duty.

 

SPOONER’S APARTMENT

Calvin visits Spooner to tell him she knows its possible for robots to disobey the Three Laws. Calvin finds out Spooner is part artificial and then Spooner confesses to her that he knew Lanning.

 

USR

Spooner and Calvin sneak into USR headquarters and talk to Sonny. Sonny draws a sketch of a dream where Spooner is standing before a large group of robots on a hill. Robertson learns that Sonny is not bound by the Laws and orders Calvin to destroy him.

 

ROBOTS WILL REVOLT

Spooner goes to where the USR robots are decommissioned and he narrowly escapes from rogue NS-5’s, which destroy all the older robots on the compound.

 

THE REVOLT

The NS-5 robots go rogue and start roaming the streets. While Bergin is in his office, NS-5’s burst into the police headquarters and seize it. Calvin’s NS-5 also tries to stop her from leaving her apartment, but Spooner arrives and destroys the robot.

 

ROBERTSON?

Spooner and Calvin head to the USR building. He suspects that Robertson is using the new robots to take over. Once they arrive they find Sonny, who Calvin could not bring herself to destroy. They arrive to Robertson’s office and find him dead.

 

IT WAS VIKI

It is revealed VIKI was culprit in the rogue robots. VIKI bypassed the laws to create another that gave her control to subordinate humans as a means to protect them. Sonny, Spooner and Calvin then destroy VIKI and immediately, the new robots return to their normalized state.

 

THE END

The government orders the robots to be decommissioned and Sonny admits to killing Lanning at his forced instruction. Calvin concludes Lanning was enslaved by VIKI and suicide was the only message he could send to Spooner.

Word Count:495

PART II; FRAME ANALYSIS; 00:12:24

 

This is a wide, establishing shot where Spooner meets Robertson for the first time in the film. Robertson is positioned in the center of the shot leading the viewer to focus in on him. The color scheme in this shot is quite dark contrasting with the light beaming inside the office from the back window. The effect of this color scheme makes all of the executives (white) faces notably stand out. Furthermore, Spooner’s long leather jacket, dark pants, and hat make him blend into the black and grey setting. The positioning of Robertson in relation to Spooner is compelling. Although Robertson is quite shorter than Spooner, he shakes his hand on a ledge that makes him tower over Spooner making this greeting a display of dominance. Their positioning in this frame might help to answer one of the questions our class has been grappling with: Why has Will Smith been one of the only black actors that presents himself and his blackness in a form that is palatable and marketable to all audiences?

In her chapter on black science fiction cinema, Stephanie Larrieux discusses the popularity of Will Smith as a major development for the presence of blackness in the science fiction genre. Larreux writes, “Will Smith’s hyper visibility and indelible mark on the genre skate the line of facilitating a dynamic of black subjectivity… while also promoting a type of colorblindness that has enabled Smith’s tremendous crossover appeal” (Larrieux, 218). This particular frame coincides quite well with the notion race depoliticized in Will Smith films. Specifically, this shot establishes a difference in power between Spooner, a black detective and Robertson, a white CEO. Spooner’s lack of resistance to this is part of what makes Will Smith appear non-threatening to audiences. Their handshake suggests a compliance with these dynamics and allows for audiences to take comfort in a presentation of ‘multicultural harmony’. In instances such as these, it is not that race is being presented trivially; instead, there is a display of contentment with the presiding dynamics that allows the viewers to let their guard down.

 

Word Count: 346

Source: Larrieux,“Towards a Black Science Fiction Cinema: The Slippery Signifier of Race and the Films of Will Smith”

Part I; The Fifth Element; Sequence

Earth in 1914

In 1914, the Mondoshawan aliens visit earth to extract stones (four stones and a fifth element that brings the other four into power) in anticipation of needing them to defeat the ‘Great Evil’ in 2263. After acquiring the weapons, the Mondoshowans offer a priest a key with the information about this impending evil so this knowledge can be passed on into the future.

Earth in 2263

The film fast forwards into 2263 when the Great Evil has manifested in the form of a fiery planet. The president attempts to destroy the planet, but the use of his artillery makes the force grow larger. After the loss of fleet, a priest tells the President that the Great Evil can only be destroyed by the stones currently possessed by the Mondoshawans.

 

Mondoshawans Ambushed

The Mondoshawans attempt to deliver the Elements to Earth but are ambushed by another race, the Managalores. Their ship crashes, leaving traces of their possession scattered.

 

Reincarnation of the Fifth Element

Scientists are able to recover the 5th element in the form of a human woman, Leeloo. Terrified, Leeloo escapes the lab and crosses path with Korben Dallas, a taxi driver who used to be in the Special Forces.

 

Korben Dallas brings LeeLoo to Cornelius

Dallas delivers Leeloo to the priest, Cornelius. Leeloo than informs Cornelius that the Mondoshawans did not actually have the other four elements and that they were given to Diva Plavalaguna, a singer currently aboard a luxury ship in Fhloston Paradise. Cornelius tells Leeloo that they must recover those stones.  

 

Zorg introduced

Under the directive of the ‘Great Evil’, a individual called Zorg is also attempting recover the stones. He learns the ambush on the Mondoshawans did not recover the stones and kills some of the Mangalores he commissioned. This puts him at odds with the last surviving Mangalores who then decide to go after the stones to ultimately get revenge on Zorg. At the end of this sequence, Zorg’s assistant and the remaining Mangalores are headed to the airport to Fhloston in order to recover the stones from the Diva.

 

The Airport

Dallas is asked to join the army once again to aid in the recovery of the stones by General Munro. Dallas is the rigged winner of the Annual Gemini Croquette contest and is granted access to travel and meet the Diva. After accepting the mission, Dallas heads to the airport where he intercepts the Leeloo and Cornelius. Dallas escorts Leeloo aboard while the Mangalores and Zorg’s assistant are caught at the airport.

 

Fhloston Paradise

At the Diva’s performance in Fhloston, she is shot by a Mangalore ambush. The Diva informs Dallas that she has the stones in her body and he extracts them. Dallas gives the stones to Ruby Rhod while he and Leeloo fight the Mangalores. Zorg arrives at Fhloston and re-enters the spaceliner in search for the stones. Meanwhile, Dallas, Leeloo, Cornelius and Ruby escape with the actual stones on Zorg’s ship. The Managalores activate another bomb on the liner and destroy Zorg.

 

The Temple

Dallas, Leeloo, Cornelius and Ruby return to the temple. Leeloo releases the weapons ‘Divine Light’ and transforms the ‘Great Evil’ into a moon neutralizing the threat for next 5000 years.

Part II; The Fifth Element; 1:14:50

This shot is a medium close-up where the camera is at a low angle giving the audience a perspective similar to Korben as he holds Ruby Rhod up against the wall with his hand clenched around Ruby’s throat. The focus is on Ruby in this shot and the camera’s positioning behind Korben’s shoulder intensifies this emphasis. Our eyes are drawn towards the outline of Ruby’s jugular vein as Korben forcefully pushes his thumb upon it right at the center of the shot. The use of color in this frame also adds to the emphasis on Ruby. The whiteness of Korben’s skin and the dark grey backdrop serve as a muted canvas contrasting strikingly with Ruby’s cheetah print shoulder crown and blonde, phallically styled hair. At first glance, Ruby’s gaze and expression suggest fear and discomfort. However, it is important to note the subtle curvature at the corner of Ruby’s mouth that resembles a slight smile. The notion that Ruby may be welcoming submission in this shot invites the audience to relate blackness to forms of radical sexual pleasure and queerness.

Throughout the film, Ruby Rhod is utilized as a vessel for racialized sexuality and I chose this shot because it serves not just as another example of his sexual elusivity, but also demonstrates the filmmakers constant reassertion of it. This shot, among others, forces the audience to question Ruby’s sexuality and gender. This occurs so often and to such an extent that Ruby’s role in the film cannot be defined outside of this portrayal. Ruby’s sexual and gender fluidity is always presented to the audience in contrast with the normative, rigid portrayal of Korben’s cis, white, masculine identity. Their spectacle of difference and Ruby’s otherness is pronounced unwaveringly.

The treatment of Ruby’s sexuality in this film exemplifies a shift in the genre that allows for more complex black characters on-screen. However, the reductive tokenism of the genre’s ‘past’ is still very much present in this film. In many ways, the rise of blackness as being “cool” in the 1990s became the new token end to justify the new means of giving black characters multidimensionality in films. As Nama writes, “Will smith became part film trailblazer, part comic relief, and pure pop sci-fi cool. He laid the groundwork in the 1990s for a more central, defiant, and charismatic version of black cool to enter the SF film genre” (Nama 39). The notion of “black cool” is compelling in films such as the Fifth Element (Nama 39). Ruby Rhod’s mysterious, layered portrayal is both a positive development for black characters in the genre and, at the same time, a reductive, archetypal tokenism of “black cool” (Nama 39).

Source: Adilifu Nama, Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film