Shane Petagna Humanities/Fine Arts

Through my research of Phillip K. Dick, it is very clear how much his creative fingerprint has been left on the world of science fiction. His ideas were revolutionary in the fact that many of his stories influenced the making of lots of iconic sci-fi films and TV shows. Dick wrote from the early 1950's until the early 1980s. He struggled with drug addiction, bad marriages, and long stretches of writer's block. However, he is perhaps the most influential sci-fi writer of all time.  The biggest difference in Dick's writing is how the dystopian elements of his stories affect his characters. Through his own works like A Scanner Darkly  which influenced The Matrix,  and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that of course led way to Blade Runner , there is a much deeper connection to the characters in these pieces of entertainment than other installments in the genre. Dick never trusted the potential connection between man and machine, which was a common theme in his work. Throu...

I really enjoyed watching all of the episodes in class of Love, Death & Robots, but the episode "Pop Squad" stuck out to me the most. Out of all of the episodes, I felt that this one contained and covered a variety of real issues that us as humans face now or could be certain to face in the future.  "Pop Squad" is set hundreds of years in the future where cities expand way above the clouds, and those that are alive have traded the ability to have children in exchange for eternity through a drug called Rejoo. The main job that the police, and one of the main characters Briggs has, is to arrest any "breeders" and kill any children they find. It is not explicitly stated, but can be implied that everyone in this society is supposed to take Rejoo regularly and only those that stop taking the drug are able to either physically have children, or are able to think more freely and less selfishly.  The basis of this episode really made me think about what the fu...

Hi everyone, my name is Shane Petagna and I'm from Edison, NJ. My life revolves around sports, and it's definitely what I'd consider myself a geek about. No matter what time of the day, I'm probably watching, playing, or reading about sports. Most of the time I'm consuming baseball in some sort of fashion. I also enjoy working out as a way to clear my mind. My goal for a career is to work somewhere in the field of sports, whether on the journalism or business side.  I'd say I'm pretty excited about the class. Who can say no to watching movies all the time? I'm really excited to watch movies I've always wanted to watch, especially The Matrix and Interstellar. I do have some concerns about some of the assignments, only because I've struggled slightly with artistic projects in past school years before. I expect to watch plenty of great works of cinema and also to have deep discussions about the world around us and the concepts that affect our lives ...