The story of a girl trying to say profound and interesting things, find a place for herself on the internet, and pass all her courses to get a Molecular Biology degree. Also zombies.
My friend Eva just pointed out something pretty weird to me. On Monday, May 2, Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by U.S. troops. But on the Thursday just four days before that, I wrote the following in my blog entry "Happy Birthday to Blog":
"Julia! You are creative! Your wit and insight are just what the world needed! Osama bin Laden was so moved, he gave up terrorism and started planting flowers!"
I said that he would be planting flowers, and now he is PUSHING UP DAISIES. My blog has superpowers. Excuse me as I go sell the television rights to FOX and then retire to a life of following the example of the prophet Light Yagami.
I read a lot of books growing up. It was my replacement for a social life. Heck, I was even part of a four-member team of competitive book readers two years in a row (read twelve books, answer questions, see which team gets the most right. We were really good and should have won both years, but we got ripped off. Especially the first. I think we got one question out of ten wrong each year, and I think even the winning team one year admitted that they had easier questions and we had really hard ones. But I digress). The point is that I know a lot about children's literature. I read Animorphs, Goosebumps, the Clue books, the Little House on the Prairie Series, and basically every children's book that the library and the system overall wanted kids to read. You know the ones: put on display in the school library and probably marked with Newbery Medals. Maniac Magee, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Island of the Blue Dolphins, etc., etc., etc.
(Honestly, I just checked the Newbery list, and I was shocked to see how many book titles I recognized that I had just completely forgotten about. My childhood may have been lonely, but it was positively rich with literature)
Anyway, looking back on my life, there are a few books which really stand out as having profoundly shaped me. Though I know that in some way, all the books of my childhood helped me see the world in a more complete or thoughtful way, there are a few that I think every child should read because I know that they were invaluable in creating some of the best parts of me.
1) Harry Potter
Okay, let's get this out of the way. Yes, everyone should read the Harry Potter series. I'm a bit sad that the younger generations will read them all in one go, because it means that the books won't grow up with them as they did for me, but that's what rereading is for. Anyway, time to start preaching to the choir about why Harry Potter is the best thing ever.
First, I have talked to at least one person who owes her love of reading to Harry Potter. Before Harry Potter, she was below the expected literacy level for her age; afterwards, she skyrocketed. Harry Potter teaches kids to love reading.
Second, the general values and lessons of Harry Potter are incredibly important. They teach courage, self-sacrifice, the real meaning and value of friendship (without shouting "BY THE POWER OF REAL AND TRUE FRIENDSHIP" as some stories tend to do - I'm looking at you, Yu-Gi-Oh), that intelligence is admirable and that girls can be both smart and badass, and that growing up means learning how to apologize (Ron).
There are of course many other great lessons that it imparts, but I would like to focus on one in particular. I've always had a deep fondness for Chamber of Secrets, which few other people understand. I think I've figured it out, though. At the end of the book, after Harry has been terrified for months that he is actually a Slytherin and not a good person after all, Dumbledore points out to him that his choice to be in Gryffindor was the most important thing. I think it was this specific idea that planted itself in my mind and has since evolved into an important aspect of how I understand the world. I've written about this idea before: how I chose things based not on what I want now, but who I want to become. Whether it's choosing a college or choosing a job, I know that my environment will shape me, but I have to choose it first. The point of this is that Harry Potter has affected me in many ways; this is simply the most obvious one.
2) The Phantom Tollbooth
This is a book that you should hand to a child as soon as they are old enough to read. Actually, read it to them as soon as they learn to speak. It's all about learning and perspective and engaging with the world, packaged in a bizarre-but-interesting narrative. I know that I read and reread this book at least ten times growing up (probably more), and as I got older I understood more and more of it and got more and more out of it. In fact, this was a book I brought with me to college. But even when I was too young to understand all the wordplay and references, it shaped my thinking. I'll give you a few examples of the interesting ideas in the book.
One section dealt with a boy named Alec Bings, who sees through things. The first thing you should understand is that he comes from a group of people who grow downwards, that is, they float in the air with their head at their adult height and their feet grow down to the ground. Alec thinks that it's strange that Milo, the protagonist, should grow in such a way that his perceptive is always changing. The second thing you should know is that Alec literally sees through things. He's always running into trees right in front of him, because he can't see whatever is right in front of his nose.
Another section tells of the story of the cities of Illusions and Reality. Illusions is a beautiful city, but it's a mirage. Reality used to look like Illusions, but the residents decided to be as efficient as possible when walking and so always looked down. Reality slowly became invisible all around them and no one noticed.
There's no good way to describe this book in a way that conveys how profound it is in its own way. I really cannot recommend it highly enough. If you somehow didn't read it growing up, please do so now. You might not find it as illuminating as I did, but you'll discover a book that's completely different to anything else you've ever read and something that you'll want to pass on to the next generation.
Okay, that's it for tonight. I definitely did not think I would be writing mini-essays about each book when I started. I'll get back to this list as soon as I can, I promise! :)
Maybe it's because I've spent the last two and a half weeks doing nothing but studying, or maybe it's because I have two weeks left containing nothing but four finals and even more studying, but I'm kind of sick of the educational system over here right now. I would like to say, for the record, that my college in the U.S. is academically superior to the University of Edinburgh, at least in terms of professors and lecture style. Two of the professors I've had this semester were, to put it politely, pretty underwhelming in their lecture capabilities. The lectures are huge and impersonal, and the only redeeming factor is the once-a-week tutorials that have now gone away. Those were where all the people I could most consider my friends were. And even when I had my tutorial friends, I never had anyone I could really confide in.
I miss my college. I honestly just want to head back to California right now to see my friends and take some science classes and some math that doesn't make me want to stab my eyes out (actually, the one class I'm fond of here is one of my math classes, but my other math class is making me want to stab my graph paper). I want to see my friends both at home and at college - friends who I know and who know me and who I can just really be myself with again. I don't really know anyone here, and there's maybe one person I can go full tilt nerdy with, and I literally haven't seen her in months. Other than my two trips out of Scotland and the time my parents visited, I could probably count the number of times I've been hugged on one hand.
The problem is that right now my whole life is studying, and not living in Scotland. I don't think I've really lived in Scotland since I got here. Kind of a vicious cycle: I didn't make friends quickly so I stayed in at night, I stayed in at night so I didn't make friends. So here I am, sitting in my room staring at math like I have been nearly every night for the last two and a half weeks, mentally cursing my professor for being completely unhelpful in lecture and for being so unengaging that what he did teach properly didn't register in my brain like it should have. Sitting here feeling sorry for myself because I'm lonely and frustrated and bored, and then feeling disappointed in myself for moping because kids in Japan are being irradiated as I type and they're all going to die of cancer while I sit around feeling sorry for myself and not doing anything about it.
This is my life right now. History all day, math at night, shower and laundry when I can squeeze it in, sleep when I get too frustrated with math to keep going. I guess there are two final points to be made here:
1) There is most likely going to be nothing of interest on this blog or on my YouTube account until early June, when I'll finally be back in the States after five months. I've got quite a few ideas backed up, don't worry about that.
2) Say hi. Comment on this blog or send me a Facebook message or whatever works. I've desperately been trying not to spam my friends on Facebook with messages, because I don't want to drive them all away, but I really am a bit lonely over here. So this is my open call to say IT'S OKAY TO SPAM ME WITH MESSAGES (as long as they aren't, well, spam). Don't worry about bothering me; I'll tell you if it becomes a problem. Make these last few weeks in Scotland feel less like self-imposed solitary confinement.
Well, today's the big day. The one-year anniversary of a girl and her blog. Sadly, this is the most significant anniversary I have in my life right now (probably has something to do with how much time I spend on the internet), but let's put that aside for now. I actually can't think of what I should put here. Just three months ago on my birthday I summarized most of the important events of the last year, so that option is gone.
I guess what interests me most is how I've evolved since I started this thing. When I first dove in, starting a blog for the internet to see, it was basically a rejection of what I'd been telling myself my whole life. You aren't good enough. You aren't creative enough. Just stick to your science and stay in your place. For all I knew, it was true, but I'd never know if I didn't try. I was twenty years old and tired of feeling like my fate was already fixed. It's like the Nightmare Before Christmas. In the actual movie, *SPOILERS*, Jack Skellington, tired of being the Pumpkin King of Halloween, tries to take charge of running Christmas that year. He fails spectacularly, and the movie ends with him realizing that he's happy as he is. But, if you listen to the last track that wasn't actually in the movie, where the narrator talks about visiting Jack many years after the story ended:
And I asked old Jack, "Do you remember the night
When the sky was so dark and the moon shone so bright?
When a million small children pretending to sleep
Nearly didn't have Christmas at all, so to speak?
And would, if you could, turn that mighty clock back,
To that long, fateful night. Now, think carefully, Jack.
Would you do the whole thing all over again,
Knowing what you know now, knowing what you knew then?"
And he smiled, like the old pumpkin king that I knew,
Then turned and asked softly of me, "Wouldn't you?"
That really important lesson - the value of trying something new, no matter what the outcome is - stuck with me ever since I saw that movie as a senior in high school. So two years later it took the form of deeds and actions, the result of which is Methyl Ethyl Aldehyde, a name I picked practically as a placeholder, because if I let myself get stuck on a title, I would never start the project at all. And that was unacceptable.
So I wrote. And eventually, I drew, at least so much as you can call dragging a mouse around the screen in MS Paint "drawing". And not-so deep down lurked a hope that someone would see something I wrote and then pass it around the internet and I would become famous and crowds of people would lift me high above the streets shouting, "Julia! You are creative! Your wit and insight are just what the world needed! Osama bin Laden was so moved, he gave up terrorism and started planting flowers!"
Okay, I didn't really think that, but I did hope for some recognition that I was more than just some girl who was good at science. And I got it, not on a large scale, but from you readers, my friends. All of you were really brilliant about saying nice things about my crazy drawings and my weird little stories. You told me that you laughed and I felt like I had done something right. So I moved up to a bigger ambition. I started making videos.
My first video was a lot like my blog title - something I threw together in a few minutes just to make sure I didn't get hung up on making everything perfect. And it was pretty bad. But I kept trying and trying, and eventually, people took notice. I still don't have a ton of subscribers; hell, Charlie McDonnell could make a video of himself sneezing and pick up more followers than I have in 3 seconds. That's okay, because "making it on the internet" isn't really something I think about much any more. I think about making videos because I like it, posting blogs when I see religious symbolism in a mediocre movie, and engaging with the community I've found. I think about pushing the envelope of my creativity in whatever way I feel like that day - provided that I don't have homework. And from the few people who read and watch what I do, I see that enough people like what I do that I must be doing something right.
So now here I am. I am a person who has learned how to take risks. I write blogs, I make videos, and I walk through the Red Light district in Amsterdam at 9:30 PM by myself because it's a necessary cultural experience (well, not the "by myself" bit, but that's what happens when you travel alone). I've learned that perfection is something to strive for, not something to start at, and that sometimes getting something started means jumping in the water and flailing until you eventually learn how to swim.
To those of you who stuck with me during the first year of this project, thank you. It's been fun to have you along. And to those of you who have told me you look forward to saying "I knew her when", well, it might be a while. And that's okay. :)
I hope you all appreciate that I spent hours making this video instead of packing for my two-week trip where I around 5 countries armed with nothing but a passport, a backpack, and a couple of phrase sheets for the four foreign languages that I'll need to know but have never learned. Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London. It's going to be awesome! I mean, my hostel in Berlin is a boat run by a hippie! What could possibly be better?
P.S. If you find either of my really lame jokes funny, please do not hesitate to tell me. If you didn't, I regret to inform you that the comments section is broken right now.
P.P.S. Part of me is just waiting for someone to say, "But [insert Harry Potter fan here] already said all this!" Yeah, well I didn't see it. The problem with the Harry Potter fandom is that there's really nothing new to say. Everyone's already talked it to death.
As most of you are aware, I went to London last weekend for a YouTube gathering (which was totally awesome, but can best be summarized by this video:
).
I just put a video in a parenthetical remark. How weird is that?
It just so happened that the night I got in, 3/4 of the band formerly known as Sons of Admirals (according to Michael Aranda, it's complicated) did a gig 5 minutes from my hostel. It was awesome, and I managed to get video footage of it all (if you aren't interested, just scroll down. There's more blog after the videos, though the concert was quite good and you should be watching all three performers on YouTube - they are really awesome). The gig in order is as follows:
I managed to talk to Alex Day and Eddplant after the show, and they were really nice, as is typical of big name YouTubers (this is why the YouTube community is awesome, guys). I was also fortunate enough to meet up with some YouTubers named Ali (RogueBlueJay) and Austin (outofthedark) before the concert, and we hung out with Michael Aranda for a few minutes afterward. Most of you might not understand why you should care about these random people named Alex Day, Eddplant, and Michael Aranda, but just know that they are really respected and admired within the YouTube community.
So Saturday was the YouTube gathering, as I mentioned before, which was fun, but mostly just involved a bunch of YouTubers hanging out, playing with iPads in a Mac Store, and making lip-sync videos with less than 20 minutes prep time (see above).
Sunday I went on a walking tour of London in the morning and then I went to the Science Museum in the afternoon with some YouTubers before catching the train home in the evening. Here's a picture of the museum gang:
Remember that Michael Aranda fellow I mentioned before? Yeah, he was there, and I was really impressed that over the course of the three hours I spent with the group he didn't demonstrate any signs of an over-inflated ego or act in any way like he was better than us. Austin and Ali were also there, along with several other great people who I was simply too lazy to tag in Paint. Sorry. :(
The Science Museum was great. Michael and Ali and I worked on solving a "build a bridge out of blocks" puzzle for about 20 minutes, with occasional assistance from Austin. A girl who was maybe 8 years old joined in to help about 10 minutes in. She then solved it within a minute (maybe two) of the rest of us giving up. That hurt.
Well, that's probably enough information for now. Needless to say, that was one of the best weekends of my life. VidCon 2010 was better, but I plan on having the very best weekend of my life in 4.5 months at VidCon 2011! I've booked all the tickets and everything. And this time I'll actually know people there! :D
Here is the important conclusion: Between my loving family, my awesome (non-YouTube) friends, my incredible summer job researching HIV in Seattle, my amazing opportunity to study and travel abroad, and the fantastic YouTube community, I have the best life in the world. Bar none.
Ali: http://www.youtube.com/user/RogueBlueJay
Austin: http://www.youtube.com/user/outofthedark
Michael Aranda: http://www.youtube.com/user/michaelaranda
The Concert Peformers:
Eddplant: http://www.youtube.com/user/eddplant
Alex Day: http://www.youtube.com/user/nerimon
Tom Milsom: http://www.youtube.com/user/hexachordal
I've been working on this thing for a week. Definitely the most technically complicated video so far (particularly without my good editing software). And so much footage to dig through and so many things I changed after I shot the footage! Oh well, 'tis done now, and good thing, too, for I've been wanting to make this video for months. Time to sleep.
In forty minutes, I turn 21. Or maybe it's 8 hours and 40 minutes. Birthdays are profoundly disorienting when you're an ocean and a continent away from the time zone you were born and (mostly) raised in. Hell, I wasn't actually born until about 5:17 AM (or thereabouts), so maybe I'm not really 21 until it's 1:17 PM here. I never really had to deal much with that question back home, having been born at an ungodly hour before most people even consider waking up.
All I know is that for some reason, this really matters to me. Maybe it's because turning 21 is a really important birthday in the U.S. Maybe it's because it's the last birthday where you gain privileges rather than simply get one year closer to the grave. It doesn't really matter here, though. I bought a beer around two weeks ago just for the hell of it (and to try and train myself to hate the taste less), and it was all perfectly legal. Mostly, though, I think I just miss my family and friends from back home. Here I don't have anyone I know well enough to celebrate the midnight turnover with.
I think my 20th year has been a good one, and probably one of my most interesting so far. I built a hammer, discovered the vlogging community on YouTube (yay Charlie McDonnell), found the true potential of blogs (Hyperbole and a Half) watched a Doctor Who season as it aired for the first time, started blogging, moved three times, had a summer job making faces at crayfish, went to VidCon, started vlogging, made friends and got subscribers on YouTube, found out how to use a Hamiltonian in quantum chemistry, learned the entire mechanism for digesting glucose (then promptly forgot it), learned genetics, learned Linear Algebra, wrote a paper on yeast and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, discovered some awesome hammocks, beat Mass Effect 2, went to a California beach for the first time, woke up early to watch the World Cup, discovered a Very Potter Musical, beat the first boss on Ninja Gaiden, got most of the way through Jade Empire, lived in a house for the first time, made friends with my housemates, drank alcohol for the first time (peach beer is disgusting, yo), left the country to study in Scotland, met people from all over the world, and wrote an essay on The Irish Question, which I turned in today.
You know what? I've just confirmed something that I've believed for a long time. See, before I started writing that list, I hadn't even thought about most of those items, including VidCon. Frakking VidCon, THE highlight of my life so far (no joke). The only reason I thought I'd had a really interesting year was Scotland. But looking back, I lived this year. That's the thing. We live more than we think we do, more than our memories let us remember right off the bat. At least it's true for me. For example, I always think about how much time I wasted as a child playing video games and watching TV. But then I find myself talking about all these really obscure things I did or learned or saw or thought growing up, and I realize that my life happens. I don't know how to explain it better than that. I have wasted a lot of time, but I have also accomplished a ton of things and seen and felt a lot.
You know what? I think I'm ready to turn 21 now. I wasn't before. I still feel a bit sad, because if homesickness is going to kick in when you're abroad, it's going to be on your birthday. But I'm okay. When I started this year, I was a Washingtonian. However, my homesickness tells me that I am now Californian as well. And if my regret at the semester moving too fast is any indication, I have a home here in Scotland too. I can't help but feel lucky that wherever I go, I now have the option of being homesick for three different places.
Now if you'll excuse me, I turn 21 in five minutes. And then again in 8 hours and five minutes, and then one more time in 13 hours and 21 minutes. How many people are fortunate enough to turn 21 three times in one day?
A point to all of you who know the origin of the title. Double points if you have the whole speech memorized, and fifty points to any of you who thought, "Oh ho! That whole sketch was about the Church of England, therefore this post is going to be about religion!" If any of you did earn those fifty points, please turn off your computer and your television and go outside for a while, because you are more plugged in and crazy than I am and that's saying something.
As most or all of you know, I'm agnostic. Now, to clear up any terminology issues, when I say agnostic I mean that I don't believe in God and don't believe there isn't a God - I quite simply don't know one way or the other. I was raised in a household without much exposure to religion and a great deal of exposure to the scientific method, so the latter trumps the former. But since I can't disprove God's existence just as much as I can't prove it, I'm stuck floating in between somewhere.
Do I lean one way or the other? Depends on what day it is, honestly. Days when I'm feeling especially down-to-earth rational, I lean against belief. Days when I can't handle the idea of neuroscience because the whole human consciousness could not possibly be created from one single brain filled with so few neurons? Those are the days I almost believe in a soul. And yes, I was a neuroscience major until I hit that wall. I couldn't handle progressing in a field with such an important, potentially unanswerable question.
I guess the point that I want to make here - something that I didn't realize until this very sentence - is that agnosticism is not the same as apathy. For evidence, please see the last post where I couldn't concentrate on homework for nearly three hours because I was compelled to break down Tron: Legacy into its bite-sized Catholic symbolism components.
The thing is, I love religion. I've written a whole post on why religious studies classes are so important. Most of the people of the world are religious, and when you understand the ideas of the major world religions, you understand people. Many wars, stories, and actions only really make sense in the context of religion. That's why the three books that will never leave my dorm room are the Bible, the English Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon. If anyone feels like giving me a copy of the Talmud or the Ramayana, I'll gladly add it to that collection.
The problem is that collecting religion is not the same as being part of one, but I fear that it is too late for me. If you want to try and convert me, go ahead - it makes me feel happy that someone cares about my immortal soul (just don't be sneaky or manipulative about it, because that kind of behavior severely pisses me off). But if you try, know that many others have come before you. Hell, I've tried to convert me to something, and it's always failed.
It's always seemed like being part of a religion would make life better. Not easier, mind you, because from what I understand, if you do it right, being part of a religion takes a lot of time and searching and doubt. But religion gives you a special community and a certain fulfillment when you live and comfort when you die. But like I said, I think it's too late for me. It's something I've learned to live with.
But sometimes, just in case someone is listening, I pray. And when I do pray, I pray for the things I think God would want to answer, because if there is something that observation has taught me, I don't think God directly intervenes with cancer removal or test scores. I mean, if all the Unitarian Universalists suddenly started winning the lottery and getting miraculously cured of their AIDS through intensive prayer, we'd have heard about it by now. So I pray for things that aren't tangible, things that don't require massive changes in the cause-and-effect of the world. Like if you're out there, help me find you and help make my work ethic better or make me a kinder person or help my friend through her illness. Because if every once in a while I offer a well-intentioned prayer to make myself a better person instead of to have the world bend itself to my needs, just maybe, maybe, someone might answer.
As pretty much all of you who read this know, I saw TRON: Legacy last weekend. For reasons even I don’t fully understand, I loved it. A big part of it was due to the fact that I actually liked the story and it made sense to me, unlike the many critics who just couldn’t follow it or didn’t like what they did understand. Looking back at the story, I can see two main reasons why.
1) I have watched the original TRON within the last 4 months
2) I attended a Catholic high school.
Weren’t expecting that second one, were you? But as it happens, TRON: Legacy is filled with crazy-tons of religious symbolism and biblical stories all piled together in one mish-mash of awesome, something which my years of Bible study and comparative religion have allowed me to appreciate. Now I am by far not the first person to point out the obvious religious symbolism in the movie, but I’d like to put my own take on some of the details. Here’s a pretty spoiler free-one - the opening narration that sets the tone for the movie:
The grid.
A digital frontier.
I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer.
What did they look like?
Ships? Motorcycles?
Were the circuits like freeways?
I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see.
And then, one day,
I got in.
What I love about this is the way it’s spoken. At least on the soundtrack, the whole thing has the feeling of a religious story or an old fairy tale. In a strange way, it almost feels like someone reciting the words of a prophet’s story written in the Bible. Here, take a look at what happens when just a few nouns are swapped out:
Heaven.
A spiritual frontier.
I tried to picture clusters of souls as they moved through the realm.
What did they look like?
Ghosts? People?
Were the angels like humans?
I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see.
And then, one day,
I got in.
This is what really got me thinking about the religious symbolism of the movie, and what I found is really interesting. But for those of you who haven’t watched the movie yet, please don’t continue reading until you have. The movie is worth seeing all theatrical-like and in 3D without spoilers (just make sure that you watch the original movie first or else the story will be harder to understand and much less fun). If you need, here’s the original movie all in one go on YouTube:
HERE THAR BE SPOILERS.
Right-o. So in TRON: Legacy, we have Kevin Flynn, a User and the father of Sam Flynn, who is trapped in a world in which he has god-like powers and which he has, in part or in whole, created. Many cycles ago, Flynn created a program named Clu in his own image. Flynn’s command to Clu was simple: help create a perfect world. Flynn and Clu worked together in harmony to perfect the digital world until a new kind of program appeared. These programs were called ISOs, and they were unique for appearing spontaneously without having been programmed and for having the ability to evolve and learn, almost like they had souls. Kevin Flynn (the Father) sees these new creations as wonderful miracles with great potential to shape the future, and they become his favored children in The Grid. Clucifer (sorry, couldn’t resist) sees these programs (humans) as flaws in a perfect system, seeks to destroy all of them, and rebels against the Father to usurp him and take over The Grid.
In what is possibly the best metaphorical answer to the question “If God exists, where is he now and why isn’t he doing anything about all these wars” that I’ve ever seen, Flynn ends up hiding from Clu outside of the Grid proper in a home where he mostly sits around and meditates on nature of the universe while looking exactly like Michelangelo’s interpretation of God:
Seriously, the hair, the beard, the robes, the weird thing(s) on his back…
The reason given for him not leaving and, say, doing something in either of his worlds is that if he does, Clucifer will instantly find him, grab his info disc, and hitch it up to his digital Tower of Babel so that he and his army of fallen angelshumans programs can walk amongst the Users and cause an Apocalypse by taking over the world. Clu’s rebel programs have two possible origins: either they turned to serve him willingly (Castor, for instance) or they were brainwashed and corrupted into serving him instead of the Users.
Flynn’s only company is Quarra, the last remaining ISO, a young woman who is naïve and pure and innocent and completely loyal to him, making her possibly the first time that the Virgin Mary has been so clearly realized as a digital character.
Ultimately, the restoration of the balance in the world only comes about when Sam Flynn, Kevin Flynn’s approximately thirty year old Son who shares the same substance as his Father (flesh, blood, and DNA as opposed to zeroes and ones) becomes data incarnate. His mission: rescuing his father to get him (and by extension his father’s corporate message of generosity and good will) back to the physical world, which will in turn save his father’s company (his father’s people) from its path of selfishness and corruption. In doing so, he also helps his father to purify the Grid of Clu’s evil influence and saves the last of the ISOs (humanity) before both he and the Virgin Mary stand-in are assumed, body and soul, back into heaven/reality.
Clearly there are problems with this analysis, what with things like the programs standing in for both humans and angels as necessary and the Son falling in love with the Virgin Mary. But hey, I never claimed that this movie was an exact Biblical retelling, just that there's a lot of religious symbolism in this movie. I think I've proven my point. I hope at least one person cares about this, because I've just blown about 2.5 hours of quality homework time getting this out of my system.
