You are expected to watch the film “The Experiment” 2010 by
Paul Scheuring.There's a movie review provided for you, although I found it a little off. The idea behind the film is how conditioning ties in with
control. Through conditioning (which is the money in the film), one can still
chose to use moral reasoning to change the outcomes.
To get it straight, the issue here is the realtion between
control and savage actions.
After you watch the film please respond to the prompt in
about 350 words.
1.
In your opinion, what part of the film includes
the actual collapse of the moral values?
2.
Who is the most influential character in your
opinion? Why?
3.
What problem about the human nature was brought
up? Why? (director’s intention?) Please read some reviews to be able to answer
this question.
4.
In your opinion, what is the role of fear in
order to supress human actions? Do you see it as a long lasting solution?
5.
How did you find the ending? Please explain.
RUBRIC FOR THE BLOG POSTS _____/20pts
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CLASS NOTES
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Class notes were either lacking or poorly integrated, note-taking practice needed.
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Class notes are somewhat integrated, yet remains superficial in the blog post.
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Class notes are well-integrated into the post submitted. The student is an attentive listener.
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RESEARCH/INSIGHTFUL RESPONSES BASED ON RESEARCH
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The research is inadequately done, and the quality of the blog post is unsatisfactory.
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The research is somewhat done and quality is at student!s level, however, the student can improve his/her knowledge by reading more.
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The quality of the post is clear evidence for in-depth research. The student excelled his/her skills.Great job!
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LENGTH
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The length of the post does not meet the expectations. (0)
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The length of the post meets the expectations. (5)
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RESPONDING TO OTHERS
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The student didn’t respond to his/her friends’ posts.
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The student responded but it is very haphazardly done and does not go beyond “I like it”.
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The student well-responded to his/her friends’ posts. It is insightful and very thoughtful.
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I think that the part when the guards tie Travis to a chair shows actual collapse of moral values. They shave his head and they piss on him. This is really inhuman behavior and it is humiliating. Violence is a bad thing, but what they did to Travis is totally immoral. For me, the most influent character is Barris. Barris, who is the leader of guards, is a good man in the beginning. When he gets the authority he changes and he becomes unmerciful man. He humiliates the prisoners and uses violence. He abuses his power when he sees the experiment is not terminated. That is why I choose him as an influent character and also he proves the aim of the experiment. He makes us know how humans can change by the outside effects. People are born with violence instincts. Aggression is in their nature, but in social life aggression is controlled and normally they do not show violent behaviors. This film adapted from a real experiment, Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. The director’s intension is to reflect reality which was proved by Zimbardo’s experiment. The reality is social roles influence human behaviors. The people who took place in the experiment were probably normal people who obey the rules. However, power and authority make them violent and sadistic people. Prisoners behave as weak and defenseless. Guards became more cruel when the prisoners give answer back to them. I think fear suppresses human behaviors to some extent. After a while, people who has fears become reactive and rebel. In the movie the prisoners riot against to guard who use fear to keep them under control. Fear is not a long last thing just like in the movie. I think the end was very effective, because the experiment shows us how people can act with an under authority. It was very realistic. The experiment was successful but it causes one man to die. This experiment shows us people can change in cruel conditions like Travis. Then Travis change when he gets into normal life. This experiment shows people’s good and bad faces clearly to us.
YanıtlaSilI really likd your ideas, It is meaningful for me. You made a good research yankı
SilI really liked your post Yanki. I think you gave a lot of thought and made your research well. You and I have different opinions on influential character, but I liked reading an opposite point of view.
SilYou are far better in writing I have to say, good research and smart relation made with the prison experiment. Thanks for mentioning, because that is what I want to do next week :) Good job (Travis changed??)
Sil"The Experiment" is full of scenes that moral values are collapsed, but the actual collapse of the moral values is shown in the scene that guards don't help to the man who has diabetes. It's an extraordinary situation, he may die; but guards don't care about that, when they're called guardians, most of the guards' ego comes first! Barris, who is the Afro-American guardian in the movie is the most influential one for me. He told that he is a religious man, he has to obey the god; but when he wears the guardian uniform, he has changed so quickly into an evil.His conscience and belief are gone away; he shows us that even the purest human has an evil side. The director tells us that the human beings are not less dangerous than the animals. In the beginnig, some violences and dangerous situations between the animals are shown. However, "The experiment" shows that human beings can kill and hurt each other unnecessarily. If I was a physycologist who reports this test, I would tell that: "We made a test and put 26 men in a prison and we told some of them to be guardians, and some of them to be prisoners. Even though, no one knew each other before and no one had personal problems with each other; they fighted and become enemies with each other just because they are named as 'guards' and 'prisoners'.Most of the guards could accomodate so easily and they had an ego boost. This shows that human nature has an evil and dangerous side; and the positions of the people expose them. We can say that; the real guardians in prisons were not born as bad people, or they aren't guardians due to their personality.Their positions push the evil side of them. Neverthless, people who can withstand the evil and who can be aware of that our position is humanity may be different."(just like Bosch!) Fear is not a long-lasting solution, because every one has a limit and honour. We saw that the prisoners were afraid of the guards and the red alert until the end, at the end they came to life, and forgot about the fear. As a matter of fact, who cares the 1000$ when it's gained in these kind of humilating and barbarous circumstances? The ending was easy to guess for me. I knew that the red alert will be alarming when everyone goes off the rails. I was impressed by the scene that Barris looks at the money that he gained, and his eyes say that"Damn! Did I really experience these things for this?"
YanıtlaSilBurcu,
SilI agree with you on the fact that even the most innocent person in the whole universe has an evil side that wants to keep the power of governing people. However, my point is a little bit different than yours. You believe that a person's position expose his personality which is correct in some ways but I do believe that we are born with that bad side. Let me give an example. When I was seven years old, I was chosen as class president. I was proud of myself and try to control my classmates by my own power. This is just a little example, but it shows that innocency is a fragile part of humans and no matter how old you are, you can still be evil as the others because you have the potential. Everybody has it and it is so hard to be controlled by our ego. By the way, nice work! :)
burcu ı like your comment. You mention about every person in this world have potentional to be evil and this is a good idea
SilGreat refleciton Burcu and good response Hazalcım. Burcu, I like the way you brought up the honour aspect to it through the use of money as a reward. Think about it, think about all the people who are smugglers and knowingly harm humanity for the sake of money... Great job. thought provoking.
Sil
YanıtlaSil“The Experiment” is a thriller movie about human psychology and actions. This movie observes human control on morals. The part of the film, where one of the guards decide to make all the prisoners do push-ups instead of just punishing the partially guilty one, shows the actual collapse of the moral values. Because at that point, superego becomes ineffective and ID starts to take over the brain of the guards. Feeling power and satisfaction that they have in prison fulfills their presence. This movie includes many irritating characters. It’s a good thing because they all foil the character called Bosch. He is one of the black –and only good hearted- person between all guards. He is the most inspiring character simply because he never loses his morals, emotions and humanity. In spite of the actions of people that he was surrounded with, he continues to fallow his principles. He even gets himself into trouble while he’s trying to help one of the prisoners. In short words, him sticking with his principles, not getting affected by the impact of “power” and being able to control himself is very influential. The problems about the human nature in the movie is simply moralistic issues. The experiment is done to test the amount of time which can make the superego in the body ineffective, reveal all the possible effects of ID on people; basically make the civilization in people disappear. The problem with human nature is that no matter what kind of a person we are, eventually the things that appear as the results of the test happens to human beings under the same circumstances. So the director is trying to show us even with little change in our civilized ways of living we’re all actually savages and animals. Civilization is the way for us the hide the animal inside of us. To every action, there is a reaction and I believe that fear has a long term impact on people. What I’m trying to tell by that sentence is; using fear and power to frighten people works effectively in the beginning because when there is an action that threatens our brains, we tend to withdraw. Yet withdrawal doesn’t mean that the brain is defeated. It only wins time for further threats and attacks. In the mean time courage develops, other strategies develop so the human brain finds a way to get out of the situation . To sum it up we can say that fear is an effective but a short term solution because in the end there will be strategies to beat the thing that causes people to feel fear so it will lose it’s effect somehow. The ending of the movie is giving a nice lesson, telling us that we can be different from the animals if we choose to be. As long as we manage to control ourselves, it’s possible that we can protect ourselves from turning into savages. Also the calmness of all those viciously angry people when they come out to the real world has a big meaning; it is revealing the effect of society on human nature.
I am totally agree with you about the Bosch and I liked that you talk about Freud's theory. You talked about the film with connecting Freud and it is good see because it was our topic.
SilHey Buket I liked your point of view about control but do you think we can control ourselves under some interesting circumstances?
SilThis is what I would suggest! In my opinion education must improve the superego and the conscience instead of trying to tame id and ego... Great job! Wonderful reflection.
Sil"The Experiment" was an amazing movie, about a group of men entering an experiment that offers 1,000 pounds per day. In the end, we saw how even the most harmless seeming guys can turn savage. Throughout the whole movie, I felt shocked at the amount of savagery. To tell the truth, I was expecting the experiment to go terrible, but never to this content. According to the movie, once one has power they change. I think that the part where moral values actually collapsed was when the black and recessive guy took over the whole thing and the real crack appeared at the haircut scene. He had lost his morals and changed them with the effects of his actions to the red light. The red light thing kind of sounded like a religion, or a belief he was holding on to. His right and wrong changed according to it. Maybe that is why we have morals, because some big force told us so. The guy acted like the scientists were the rule maker of their world.
YanıtlaSilThat's when it occurred to me the pressured ID of humans and what it might be holding in. It would be really dangerous if we didn't have any morals.
The most influential character might be the blond guy with desire issues. He was the one who ignited that big kindle placed by the scientists, that grew into a wild p-fire. But it might also be the black and corrupted guard. He was the one who fed it as time passed by. He was definitely the focus of the whole movie, at least for me.
The way the prisoners were treated created lots of anger and the feeling of revenge. Revenge can cause a horrendous amount of bad things, as the movie shows. At the end of it, one can understand why the scientist asked those questions in the beginning. They highlighted what would happen in the experiment. One could say that this experiment was inhumane, though it's probably the how humans, or any organism that tries to survive in that matter, would act. It was pretty human. It was pretty animalistic as well. That may be why in the beginning of the movie, we were shown clips of animals fights, prey against predator, predator against predator. It's not just humans that shows cruelty, or we're not that different from animals.
The weak ones, in this case the prisoners, got eaten and tormented. This was because of the positions. We create them, giving ourself power over others, making ourself unique from others. If we can make the people around us believe our position or ownership on something, it will be legit. To be real, others have to think it's real. You are what others think you are in our society.
It also scared me when the main character lost his sanity a little in the pipe.
Fear also had a big impact in the prisoners and it was the first step of violation on their morals. Fear is a natural instinct that is founded in every species of animals, as far as I think. It helps us to stay away from the bad and dangerous things, therefore stay alive. The guards were using fear as a controlling factor over the prisoners so they wouldn't be revolting against them. We use this a lot in our daily lives, in teasing, blackmailing and in children for them to obey your rules. In the movie though, this kind of backfired on the guards, causing even more powerful revolts and in the end, extreme all-out violence between two groups. Now that I think about it, this is an example of "us and them" psychology. Is this the reason why we resort to violence? Because we separate one group of people from ourselves and get ticked off by their presence? Who knows... Still, I think we could get more into these questions if we watched the original movie, at least in English subtitles.
As I found out, this movie was actually made based on another movie named "Das Experiment". There has been lots of criticizing to the movie about how the remake failed to express the message of the original movie. Some say that the guards were more like psychopaths than normal people. There were actually some normal ones in them as well, but that's mostly true. They say that the message is shown as "psychopaths can do these bad things" but the real message should've been "In the end, everyone is capable of violence, oppression and humiliation."
SilThe end was a bit meaningless to me. There are times when a manga I read turns into an animation and it's kind of snapped at the end, like the directors were trying to do a quick job. It felt the same in this movie. I think there was more to be said in this movie that was left undone. Still, it was a great thriller, predictable with a hint of reality and had great acting.
Zeynep, I also found the ending meaningless. I agree with you that wathcing the original movie would explain things better. I think that not everybode became savage. Do you think that Travis became savage?
SilInteresting comments made on the side blond guy who assisted Barris with the ignition of the events. There's one in LOTF as well, Roger.. The ending may seem off a little, however, maybe it is not the ending what the director wanted us to dwell on, maybe it is the experiment itself rather than the ending.. The rules are the rules, we go back to normal, but the scary thing is the absence of it.. Lovely, lovely refleciton.
SilFirst of all, “The Experiment” movie is about a group of men who involve in an experiment to get 14000 dollars cash money. I liked the movie because it showes that every human has an evil inside and theycan do anything even if it’s just about money. I see that the characters’, especially Barris’, moral values aren’t important for them when it comes to maintain their authority, and also to get money. As an example, Barris beats Travis for several times and does lots of worse things in order to keep him under his control. He is also mean to other prisoners like the comic books writer. These are the things that normal people shouldn’t do to each other.
YanıtlaSilI think that the most influential characters are both Travis and Barris. First of all, I don’t find Barris as a good character, but without his super intelligence, red light would have turned on already, so he changes the flow of the events. Travis is also very influential because he escapes from the box he was locked and sets everyone free which results badly. Because of Travis the experiment is cancelled and nobody gets paid, so he changes the flow of events as well.
The movie has a good message in the end too. It shows that we have bad sides like animals. Compared to the beginning of the movie, where there were animal’s nature described badly, the end is not different for human beings. So it shows that we are not less dangerous than any other animals in the world, maybe more. Human use their egos as their weapons and this causes to a psychological war, which ends with a physical one. Also in Lord of The Flies, there are some little fights between children, even if they’re too young for that.
Fear is also used as a weapon in the movie. Barris uses people’s fears to control them and he does it well. He scares Travis several times and this works on him very well. However, that lasts for a short period of time. In the movie the fear can’t stop Travis and he starts a fight bettween the guards and prisoners.
I liked the ending of the movie but, I found it very nonsense for them to fight. They were there to get cash money, not to boost their ego. Guards could’ve been a little bit more kind, and prisoners could’ve been a little bit more respectful so that no fights would have happened and everybody would go home with 14000 dollars. However, because of humans’ stubborn characteristic and desire to boost their ego, they can’t just have a good life inside the prison. I think that’s what the director was trying to say through the ending.
Yiğit,
SilI think you read my mind while you were writing your blogpost. I agree that the combination of ego and fear runs today's world. Human beings want to satisfy themselves by controlling power and using it against to others. Fear, which is the other main element in the world, causes people to become isolated and introverted. They hide the reality about themselves deep inside of them with fear and when someone finds it out, that person controls him. I think that what you wrote is amazing and completely matches with my thought system. Thank you for your thoughts! :)
Hello yiğit, I really liked ur post. I would like to compare it to a donald. It looks hilarious and so attractive but don't forget donalds have a hole so that is your post is that emptiness in that donald.
SilBu yorum yazar tarafından silindi.
Sildonught olcak donald değil orda bir yanlış anlaşılma var
SilGreat focus on the ego and its impact on human psychology. It is most of the time the fascination of satisfaction and the delight we gain from that sadly. Awesome post.. And your refleciton is not empty as a donald!!! :) I disagree with Cetin.
Sil“The Experiment” is an excellent movie example to analyze and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of human nature. In my opinion, the actual collapse of the moral values started when the guardians put Tarek Fahd into the black box. Here, the box is a symbol of fear. The darkest secrets of human beings are always hidden deep inside of them. They also hide their fear within their secrets. That is why people try to find a way to get out of their black secret boxes when they have to face with it. Facing with fear has never been easy since the creation of humanity and it will never ever become easier. Just because human beings are so damn scared to face with the reality, they are controled by governments that have the power to identify everybody’s black secret boxes. According to my thought system, this is a vicious cycle that nobody can fix. It is clear that Tarek wants to get out of the box, because he is surrounded by his biggest fear and darkest secret. The second after he gets out of the box, everything changes completely in an opposite way. Moral values are being tested after he defeats his biggest fear because the most innocent guy, Schütte, dies in a horrible way. I also think that the most influential character in the movie is Tarek. He himself is the symbol of revolution and freedom in the movie. He sets every important action in the movie. He is also the most connected character to real life. He always gets punished by the guardians that keep control of them. It is the same in reality. Whenever somebody revolts against the government itself, this person is silenced by the power that every government has in its dirty hands. Also, I think that the only thing that causes problem in the society is being possessed with governing and controling somebody. I mean this is the key point of human behaviors. When a person gets a chance to govern a bunch of human, he/she will ultimately want to do that again. This is the unalterable fact about human psychology. I also found the director’s intention same with mine. I think he also wants to show the fact that we have that evil part inside of us and when it combines itself with power, there comes chaos. By looking at today’s modern world, which absolutely has nothing to do with humanity, people are controled by power. Governments, the group of people that give every decision for society’s future, has the authority to unite us all and destroy it so easily. I have no tolerance to any government because it is just another side of killing people. To me, the ruling person or the group of people kills either in direct and indirect ways. It is just the reality of what humans do when they get the power to control everybody’s fear of living which is not a right behavior. It is not even a solution to the endless problems of humanity. I think the ending is quite relative with today’s events. There is this stupid understanding of people that ruins every little sign of humanity nowadays. Violance, death, terror and blood are everwhere now. Everybody wants the power to control the world only by himself according to his own rules of governing and as I mentioned before, there is no end of this disgusting wish. We are born with this feeling, the feeling of controling fear to have the power and authority.
YanıtlaSilHazal , your last sentences are nearly same with mine and unfortunately I am agree with you because we born with that feeling and it wont end.
SilThe movie “The Experiment” was a movie full of undeniable psychological collapses. In my opinion the part when Bosch have beaten by Barris and other prison guards and became a convict because of his intention to help Benjy who was nearly dying was the actual collapse of the moral values. Benjy needed to get a medicine for his survival but just because of the rule which is forbidden to take any of the outside material to inside of the jail, Barris lost his humanity and kind heart which he actually does not have and beated Bosch. I think the most influential character is Travis because he is so kind and brave that he tries to help everybody and be fair. I think revenge and anger is shown in this movie. The director tries to show us how evil we can become when we are fomented by others. In this experiment, even if the convicts tried to stay calm, they could not because every time they tried, Barris whom I think is a psychopath could not controlled himself and caused harm to every one of the convicts. He also killed Benjy because of his anger and ambition . He got into his duty more than needed , because of that all of the problems got started. In my opinion fear has a big role in suppressing human actions but it is not the right way to do it. In real life this is admissible as well but people can find better and more kind ways to set authority. Just because of making people fear is easy, some people select this way instead of making people love them and act according to the rules and respect them. Fear is not a long lasting solution as we saw in the movie “The Experiment”. I think the ending was how it was supposed to be, I was expecting convicts to attack prison guards because they have gotten too much far and they had to be stopped.
SilBu yorum yazar tarafından silindi.
SilEce,
SilI agree with the fact that fear is now becoming a new and stronger weapon of evil. People can easily be controlled by this weapon which is no good for us. I would like to thank you for your wonderful ideas!
hazal your comment is amazing. your last part is a true idea you said that people have this when they born. it is a good statement
SilHazal, wonderful reflection stated and remarkable points made about today's politics. I would have to agree with you, people are inhumane and we try to inject humanity through rules and education. When the reigns are held by cruel people, there comes terrorism and chaos.. Sadly..
SilEcecim, very good refleciton, I agree that Barris is a weird psychopath especially considering he is already a leader in the society being a reverent.. Good post. Keep up with the good work.
Sil"The Experiment" is a real experiment that proves human being didnt finish the evolution yet. People in the film cant hide the real face of the human being which is the times that people were acting like thoughtless and selfish. People can show the both sides by the power they have or the threats which they cant escape by talking. İn the movie we can see 17's changed behaviours because of threats on the other hand Barris , the guardian, changed by the power that he have. The part when Barris feels the power of controling by that power he punishes prisoners harshly and this shows the actual collapse of the moral values. Film includes a lot of characters with different characterizations. The character influences me lot is Bosch. He doesnt change himself because of the payment they will get or the power he has as same as Barris. The huge different between Barris and Bosch is Bosch didnt recant a second of the principles he have. Especially he gets himself into trouble for a sick prisoners when the others dont care. As I mentioned at first human nature rewind the time when they were controlled by ID and selfish. In a group of people only a person stands still where he comes. The film finished with a sentence about where human nature stands in the evolution. One said after monkeys but I think human nature is not there yet, actually not even close. Power and fear can control lots of poeple. I dont see a lasting solution for that because it is the humanity we have and we live with fear. Some can be fearless but everyone has a weakness. Everyone is doing something for whom they love or what they love. So what I think is we dont have solution and we wont have the solution. At the last I was expecting that experiment will finish the fourteenth day because I werent hopeless about human nature but the experiment proves human nature born with ID and we cant destroy it by the end.
YanıtlaSilBasak,
SilI think you did a great job with this post. I believe that your post reflects you opinions so well, and i think your thoughts are parallel to the movies main idea. I think you did you research well, and watch the film really carefully.
Interesting right? Sometimes I think animals are better off controlling their groups because of the lack of morals. ID has to be in charge and gets developed naturally.. Good remarks being made..
SilIn my opinion the worst moral collapse happened at the part when all of the guardians put pressure on Travis. He had not done anything bad, he was just trying to protect and help his friends. It was too humiliating when the guards cut his hair and peed on him. I think the most influential character is Travis because he is different from others, he tries to stay calm for a long time about the ongoing threats but after some time he could not. I think ambition , inhumanity and revenge are the themes of this movie. In my opinion fear suppresses human actions but it should not be like this. Fear should not be the thing that make people obey the rules. It is not a long lasting solution as we saw in the movie “The Experiment” because at some point people get out of control. I think the ending was impressive because I liked the riot of the men to the guardians. The guardians had to understand that it is just an experiment and the exaggeration they made. This movie made me realize that how humans can be that much evil. I am too sad that people have the potential to become this much violent.
YanıtlaSilTuran, you wrote everything in the same way I was thinking. The injustice for the ''prisoners'' made me very angry and sad, and I was waiting for them to get revenge. But it is controversial if revenge is good or bad. Sometimes yes, sometimes not.
SilTurancım, good points being made minus the length. Please abide by the length requirement next time, overall, I agree with what you say. Thanks.
Sil" The experiment" it was a nice film but while ı was watching the film I Couldn't stay calm because someone tortures somebody and they couldn't give reaction to the punishers.
YanıtlaSilI think the part where the guardians pee on Travis shows actual collapse of moral values.Gurardians put Travis in to a box. In prisoners side Travis is the most importannt charachter. In other side the african person is the most important one. Before this experiment, doctor ask them their religion and how do they judge people? Travis said: I believe my own truths and The african man :I am a religious. The red light was like a god for the african man. So he started to be cruel and gave punishments to be a good person for god. Travis didn't obey the rules because rules are not okay for his ideas. The african man was so quite but then he turns into an evil. I wouldn't expect it form this guy. He become the leader of them. In my opinion, The director wanted to show everyone, The african guy was harmless and he was a good realitonship with Travis but when he becomes a guardian He had to treat bad to keep control in his hand. He tried to keep control with fear but it didn't work. In psychology, Every human has 3 mental things. Id, Ego and Super ego. In the film African was Id. Travis was ego and the some of guardians was super ego. Every person has a patential to hurt someone with their own desire and he wanted to show the value of money. In a book I read a quote like this: Every monarch kills people to be strong and keep his strongness in his hand. So the guardians want to keep control that's why thet treat like this. I think pressure wouldn't be solution for protest. Fear is solution for short time at the end the group which is against to the fear would defeat the fear. and make revolution. I didn't like the at the end of film because ıf i was Trawis, I would kill african guy. It was just an experiment and the african guy tortures Travis.
Berkay I think your thoughts are perfect and it's obvious that you watched the film and made research on it. You also mentioned some of the things like superego, Id and ego which we covered in class. I also liked the ending you made for Barris. Great work!
SilRevenge, sweet revenge.. I think if he had taken revenge, then the message would be even more horrid. I'm actually glad that Travis stayed the same, that makes me think that there are sane people around even in the darkest time of the day.. .just saying..
SilIn my opinion the collapse of the moral values begins when guardian did not give insulin medicine to the person with diabetes illness. The guardians knew that the man was very ill but they did not give the medicine to not break the rules. The guardians also just followed the rules when they wanted to after a few days in prison. This event thinks me that money is everything to people and it can easily control the human. It does not matter is it from your family or not, people can forget their humane sides when money involved.
YanıtlaSilFor me the most influential character of the movie was Travis. I believe that in the movie and in the real story he was chosen on purpose for this experiment. He was the key to the experiment because he more peaceful compared to the other people. He was against violence and this is why they chose him. To prove that even the most peaceful and calm people can turn into wild in the right time and place. If Travis wasn't there the experiment would finish in 14 days. Travis was against the violence so that was exactly good example of why he was so rebellious in prison. He couldn't stand the harsh act by the guardians on the prisoners. Therefore I believe that Travis is most influential character of the movie.
As previously stated money had a big role in this movie. Money was the only limit given to the people in the experiment that prevented that the guardians even caused more harm to the prisoners. Though besides the matter of money I believe that the real intention of the film director was to show how good it is to be bad or better said how easy it is for us to chose bad over good. The real problem about human nature illustrated though was the pleasure of power and the wish of authority. The head of the guardians was a 40 year old and very religious man who still was living with his mother. He obeyed his mother still like a little child so the mother had power over her son. When the man got the chance to use his force on others for the first time it was something really delighting and joyful for him. It seemed like he didn't even cared about the money as long as he had the last word.( he was in charge of everything). With power comes responsibility. That's what the people forget when they are surrounded by their own power.
Force may scare some people especially when it is not controlled or in giant amount though it must be said that the people will get sick of this fear they will get used to it and they will protest or even get rid of the people who try to suppress them with fear after a while I don't believe that this is a long-lasting solution.
The ending was not a big surprise though it is sad that someone had to die in an experiment that was watched 24/7 by educated people who just let this happen. People become bad for their own benefits or the benefits of their society.
Fıtrat very good job I can see that you watched the film carefully and point out some important details of the film and the lesson we stayed on it great keep doing homeworks like that
SilRıfat, great points made on why Travis is a significant character, yes, he is good-hearted and needed, otherwise, the world would be soo scary, at least there are people like him, and about the money issue,I think it wonderfully appeals to the selfish nature of humans.. I have to say, I truely detest money..
SilThe Movie “The Experiment” was a good movie to take lesson from. We can see that even the person who we dont expect can lose his/her moral values against their super egos. In my opinion the part where the guardians pee on Travis when his hand and foot were all tied up was including the actual collapse of moral values. The guardian who started that action was not able to control his id because for him it was a pleasure to have the power in that place. He did not hesitate using the power in a bad manner that people gave him. I think that the most influential character was Barris, even though I didn’t like him personally but because he shows us the different side of human psychology best. Because he is different than the others by his color he may feel that people think he is loser or not important. So because of this fact he thinks that he should utilize his guardian statu which experimenter gave him for the experiment. This movie brought up the worst side of the human nature and the effects of authority. I believe that role of fear is a big factor in order to supress human action. It may help stop human action but it is not a good and healthy solution for human pschology. Because if someone tries to stop an action by fearing the person then it only occurs to make enemy against them. However I believe to supress human action people may talk and conspire instead of scaring and making bad human relationships. That’s why I believe that it is not a long lasting solution. The ending was realistic because we saw that noone can stand other one’s authority easily. Also I think it was not a surprise for the audience we could guess that something will get worse and the alert was going to ring.
YanıtlaSilSila, your thoughts and inferences are so similar with mine! I also think that Barris shows the both sides of a human so well! Good job
SilSıla, I like the different aspect you brought, race.. I was expecting someone to mention about this.. Good point to ponder, thanks dear. Good post.
SilI think when Barris and the other guards earned dominance over prisoners is the part of the film includes the actual collapse of the moral values. Moral values include the equality of all humans. When the scientists give more authority to the guards, they actually start the collapsing of the moral values. Also, when Barris' masculinity became more influential on Barris, his moral and social values thrown to the background. He became more and more sadistic. I think most influential character is Travis. First of all he is the last person to loose his moral values. Even at his roughest times he holds on to his pride and his own rules. He also thinks his friends before his well being. Barris tries to supress Travis by fear, but because of Travis' strong personality he is really hard to control. In The Experiment the dark and degenerated very quickly and inhuman side of human nature was brought up. In the film prison guards thought that they are the law, and they started to behave the way that they thought was required which is the way that contradict their values. At the end for the guard dehumanization wins over having social values. Also in the movie it shows what happens when a person loose his dignity and individuality. I think fear can supress human actions to a certain point. I don't think it's an ever lasting solution. You can supress human beings for as long as they want, but at the end when they realize what's going on they will put a stop to the suppression. I believe it also depends on willpower of humans. In the film Travis' willpower was stronger than the others so he was hard to supress by fear. I don't think the ending was surprising. Maybe because we talk about leadership a lot in the class, I knew what was coming at the end. The film was making the audience think that the story can't be real while they know it is real. This story of The Experiment is alike to the story in the book The Lord Of The Flies. All the stories about human psychology meant to end with the same way. The reason of it that human nature doesn't change. We have a potential to be evil and when it's the time the potential of us comes out. When it comes out it ends with the same way, with violence.
YanıtlaSilWill power, true!! The weaknesses and all the gaps that leave us such hollow creatures at the end.. Fear is weakness and the more hollow we are, the worse we get..We ultimately lose our conscience. Sadly.Awesome post İrem, insightful and very "you".
SilSıla I agree with your thoughts and I think that you watched the movie carefully because you mentioned some important details about it. Great work!
YanıtlaSilTo begin with, this movie might be the hardest for me to watch because I think the movie was trying to give the audience something. I was able to see it. It was pushing the limits of humanity and trying to show us who we really are and after that point I realised that we do not want to know who we really are. Because inside us somewhere, there is a beast waiting us to wake him up. I think the collapse of the moral values in the movie was the part that the guards took the man and cut off his hair and peed on him just because they thought he was the head of anarchy in the experiment. The guard insist on the prisoners should obey by the rules. For me, the most influential character is the mastermind of the guardians. To be honest, he took my bad words against him. I mean, who do you think you are at that position? Who gave you that power? You are nobody. You live with your mom at the age of 45. Seriously, I don’t think anyone would disagree with me. I hate those who are no more than nobody but when they have power, they think they are God. It was a 14 day experiment! But yes, he was the most influential character. The problem about human nature, as I mentioned before, the beast lying inside us. The director wanted to show us that, as I said in the begining of my post. Except the performances, the movie was not a good one. “You don’t know who you really are until you being pushed to your limits” Really? This was the thing you were trying to express. I mean the director. There were no limits in the movie for the love of God! You can’t just put a couple of guardians and let them do anything they want. You gave them the authority to feel like they are the God. I wasn’t natural. The experiment did not pushed the guardians. Those people had the possibility to be monsters in themselves. It would have ended differently if the mastermind of the guardians were different. The prisoners were not also being pushed by the experiment I mean guards pushed them. The fear of the guards pushed them. To talk about another thing, the endind was not enough. At least a couple of guards should die to make us (audience) more satisfied. We needed to feel of relaxing for those men who suffered because of them. They did it for money, not to be humaliated. And I think I wrote more than 350 so I’m just going to stop killing the movie.
YanıtlaSilI think you made some good points in here. Everyone, even the simplest and the purest of people are capable of having a terrible side. Especially when you give them power and the others believe in that authority.
SilI learned that this movie originated from another one called "Das Experiment". I heard that it explained human nature way better than this one and was more satisfying at the end. If you wish, you can have a look at that with subtitles. This was a good point of view in my opinion.
Ihsan your post made me smile and I appreciate your intimate tone and your honest opinions a lot, it makes reading a lot more enjoyable. The fact that you've mentoined about the story being different if the guards were leaded by someone else is tottally true. Yet I certainly don't agree with you at the point where you said, they wouldn't feel as the God if there wasn't such a leader. In my opinion they would still push the limits becuase almost all of them are enjoying the suffering of the prisoners so I think that's creepy enough. What made me exicted is at the end of the post you said that the ending isn't quite satisfying, and this is well said. After all the tourture that the prisoners have been thorugh, letting guards return to their homes is the expected ending. The only point I was not effected by your writing is the part where you said the moral collapse ponit is where the guards peed on Travis. I think it's just a bad observation of yours. But overall yours is the best post that I've read about this topic.
SilYou have such a unique tone! Love it.. As for the reason why they chose Barris as the head, I think that was not a coincidence. They chose him coz he was the weakest of them all.Yes, he lives with his mother but he is also a reverend who is also an authority figure himself! Such contradiciton.. Wonderful, wonderful reflection.. Candid..
SilThe Experiment, which was directed by Paul Scheuring, is about an experiment on human psychology. The purpose of the movie is to show how we are related to other creatures, that we are not really different from animals. With just six days, people, who are in charge of the experiment, proved Freud's theory about id, ego, and superego. Although they try to stay civilized while trying to obey the rules, on the second day, few of the guardians urinate on Travis' face, and show the breakdown of the moral values. All attendants of the experiment are chosen carefully, though, in my opinion, Travis is the most influential one. He prefers the moral values over rules, and it becomes the reason of the climax, the tension between the guardians and the prisoners. Travis revolts others against the guardians, and spontaneously becomes the voice of the prisoners. If there would not be a character like him, most probably the experiment would continue with less problems, and the topic that the director wants to show us would not be pointed. The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality.After few days, superego, which are the values and the morals of society that are learned from one's parents and others, starts to fade, and let id to cover its place with ego. While ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable. Freud says, "ego is part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world." The problem about the human nature is that if we don't belong to some community, irresponsible and reckless behaviors take control of us. In the movie, fear is seen in few different conformations. First of all, the panic that the guardians feel when Benjy needs a medicine builds the tension. Although they want to do something about it, a rule about not giving something outside the cell restricts them. The fear wins its war on guardians, though, it does not work on Travis. Because he is someone that cares human nature more, the fear that they try to give makes an opposite effect and he starts to act on purpose in order to make the guardians angry. The ending is clear, yet, confusing enough. The point of the experiment is absolute, though, attendants’ lives after the last scene is left empty for us to interrogate the manipulated psychology. Although it is clearly shown director’s vision about what other human beings would react on those circumstances, the rest of the world objects to the outcome of this experiment, which is shown when the manager of this experiment gets arrested.
YanıtlaSiloh, arrest? Didn't know about it.. Also, interesting correlation was made between belonging and recklesness. Very insightful Cansucum, I'm impressed I have to say..
SilThe movie “experiment” was very nice in my opinion and I say that even though I don’t like violence and thriller in movies that much. In my opinion the collapse of the moral values started when the guardians were not willing to give the insulin to one of the prisoners. It was very obvious that the man was everything else than in a good condition. The guardians though insisted on their opinion that he was fine which to me signalized the beginning of the struggle or in other words the slow fade away of the moral values.
YanıtlaSilMost of the people will offer their opinion on how Travis is the most influential character in the movie. I doubt that. I put Travis in 2nd place right after the mother of Barris. I chose her as the most influential (and not even visible) character due to her influence on the behavior and drastic change on Barris as the head of guards in prison. Barris is an Afro-American who is forty years old though despite being a grownup he still lives with his mother. Barris is also a religious person. He is obedient and has no power over her which makes the mum the authority figure. In my opinion most men are in need of showing their superiority which includes showing their strength over others. The reason that Barris was so obsessed with the authority and power he had was because this feeling was new to him. The more power he had the more he wanted, all of which was triggered by his mother.
Well money cannot open all doors, but as we have witnessed in the movie it can replace our humane side with a monster ready to attack. At first money was the only limiting matter together with the red light to prevent the excessive use of violence. The only motivation for the guards was to get their money. The more they thought about the material side of the experiment that sums up with their obsession of the power and authority they had the cruller they become. In my point of view money was a form of power, too. Combining al these I believe that the intention of the director and the main massage given is that people are very likely to choose bad over good when they are in possession of power. With power comes the responsibility but what if we don’t care about them? The movie is a perfect example of how people fail controlling power and mix up responsibility with spreading fear in order to keep order.
Fear is a very bad way of controlling people. People surely fear someone more powerful than them, but just at first. With the time the people get used to the fear and they have enough of the pressure on them. The situation escalates and the controlling force is gone. Fear is no long-lasting solution, definitely not.
The ending was a bit of a surprise to me. I would have never guessed that Barris was capable of the things he has done. I also believed that the scientists would cancel the experiment after the tiniest use of force. It disappointed me actually that someone had to die considering that this is a real story. The ending was way to weird. How could they go to their homes in the same bus as if nothing has happened?
Onur, u say that mother of Barris has an important role in the film, it sounds weird; actually it's right! U made different and nice inferences and it's obvious that u got the main idea of the film so well. Congrats!
SilGreat job I can see that you watches the film and lissten md.d carefully very good keep on.
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Silpondered much about Barris's mom. Now I think I should've. Moms have more power on how our character is shaped than anything else I guess.
SilI know it looks stupid to stop fighting after the experiment ended, but I tried to think of it in a different way. I think the reason why everybody stopped fighting with each other was because they felt like they were in a dream. A daze of some kind, caused by the opening doors, which made them numb towards the reality of being released. I think they wanted to think that all this was just a bad dream which they had awoken from.
Just a guess.
Maybe after the doors opened, they stopped blaming each other to an extent and instead blamed the scientists, so their anger was directed from each other to the ones who made this experiment in the first place. Who knows.
Thanks for the post as always.
Stunning remarks.1. The mother?? Sure, soo important.. We will dive more into that later with Freud. 2. Money as a means to unravel the beast..
SilThough-provoking and advanced. Thank you..
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YanıtlaSilThe movie “The experiment” I think the movie is not good because it includes inconvenient things like pissing the man’s face or raping the prisoners. The film includes the weaknesses and strenght of the humans like the man who raped the prisoner. In my opinion the actual collapse of the moral values in the part when the guardians takes man and shave him then they piss his face when I watched the scene I felt very uncomfortable this is very weird and disgusting punishment for every person. In my opinion Barris (who is the leader of the guardians) is the most influential character in the film because he repsents when people take some responsibility and concession they change easily in the beginnig of the film he act normal but in the following parts of the film he take the responsibility and showed his authority to other guardians and prisoners. Revenge and ambition are brought up in the film. The director wants to give message which is everyone has a dark side and the dark side wants a chance to show himself to the others. In the beginning of the film Barris was a loser but in when he became a guarding his ambition showed himself to the watcher his ambition was his darkside.People’s fear was used as a weapon in the film. In the middle of the film Barris said “ We can’t hurt them but we can scare them “ and they start to scare them with using their fear or doing som disgusting things. But all we know this wasn’t solution. In the end, I really like the ending of the film because they show how they are powerful and they take revenge for them.
YanıtlaSilRevenge? How?
SilIn the class we all talked about how people become savages also in the film, in a real experiment we all seen we can be savages just in 6 days. But there is an important point that we have to be on it, most of the people in that experiment was not normal. Some of them always been under control of his mother and then when he has the chance to to control someone under his power, he was like to do it. Also the police team includes members who has problems about absence of sex, raping… I mean they are not normal, everything can happen with those people in a place like that because as humans some of us has the attribute to change the situations like the boy in the film, he was the leader of them, but some of us are bored to obey those people who is the control. Also There are other types of human, they just talk and the ones who obey the authority expect those people to change the things but at the end you realize that they are changed and now they are nearby the authority. In this experiment we seen things like that. When the prisoners get together and start running to the police side, we seen the attitude of police officers to the leader of polices is changed suddenly because he caused something that all prisoners are capable to kill the officers. I think in a situation like that also it can be a disobedience the most influential character is the one who take all of them together and be able to take down the authority or the government. There are many examples of it like Atatürk, Che Guevara… We remember the heroes. In a pressure community there is always a point we stick on to. In Turkey as we know they use the religion in that film the director uses the light. They are afraid of that light because if it turns on the experiment will finish, it is same in everywhere of real life. Rule makes to stick on to something. There is no solution for that, the ones who wants to be the authority there is always lies that they have use to it to also lie themselves. Black police officer was now the truth that light will not turn up but he wants to use it as an symbol and he did, he used it to harsh people in the prison because of his personality problems. Cause of that I cannot seen a solution for that, this is human not machine we are capable of everything because we are open source machines. The ending was predictable and it was an interesting film but we see things like that also in real life if we observe it carefully.
YanıtlaSilThe biased side, I can even hear you talking :) The people the researchers chose might have been considered as "not normal", however, what's normal?? Who decides who is normal or not? Would we be who we are under such circumstances? We can never know unless we are exposed to the same situation. There are great leaders as well, yes. Think about today though, and how it can just turn upside down in the hands of the wrong people..
SilThe Experiment movie is about testing people under responsibility, pressure and need. The men who applied and accepted to the test are going to have a great amount of money only if they finish the experiment and obey the rules that the researchers gave. At first everyone are trying to obey the rules, but guardians get more crucial, murderers rebel. So, we can say that guardians and murderer’s relation is proportional. I think collapse of the moral values is the time that the boy with insulin illness gets sick and dies. It is the biggest collapse because audience sees that the both sides don’t obey the rules anymore. Everyone’s need could be different, but the director shows man’s covered penis. So the audience get the idea of man’s sexual wants and they are not be able to control their wants, needs and sexualities. Freud’s theorem fits the experiment perfectly because the penis and sexual scene is an evidence of id. They are not able to do anything. I think the most influent character is Travis because he has a great knowledge and he is able to do what will be the best for him under every bad condition. At one of the scene Travis thrown down his uniform and the entire murderer’s follow the action. So, he symbolizes the power in the movie. Giving power to some randomly, not chosen for traits, and not checking them starts chaos. Unlimited power changes everyone. For instance, Barris and Travis are friends during the application, but when the experiment starts Barris chosen for the guardians and the Travis chosen for the murderer. Every punishment that the Barris give makes him happy because other guardians stimulate him to give more punishment. He becomes more egoistic. The director shows that with showing the past of the Barris and his mother humiliated him. So, director shown excellent example of egoistic nature of people come up with power. Fear is not the solution for suppressing human actions. It could stop some actions for sure but not every thing and every time. If you use fear to stop an action for 4-5 times, fear become a not being solution for anything anymore. That’s why we are trying to find some other ways to suppress the actions. I don’t like the end of the movie because I want to see what the test stands for in researcher’s point of view. Analyzing the experiment in scientific way could be more impressive because audience will understand reasons, affects and connects them in to their life that is more beneficial for world. It is frustration for me. It could be better, but it is generally great and didactic movie.
YanıtlaSilHello Belit, I really liked ur post but u are wrong in some point. The boy didin't die because of his disease, he died because he got hit from head. As you can see they gave the insulin, even they didn't the reason is that they want to obey to rules because they think that if something is crucial about health the professor would stop it and rescue that guy.
Silnot rescue save** wrong word choice
SilBelit I believe that your criticism of the movie is similar to mine. What I like the most about your post is, the fact that you mentioned about what the protagonist (Travis) symbolizes as a character. I also find the point; where you choose the death of the boy with the insulin, as the collapse of the moral values, interesting becuase I've never thought of that and with your explanation it totally creates a new perspective for me to look from. Overall I find your post well written and thought.
SilThe penis!! At last somebody mentioned about the significance of it through the ID theory.. Wonderful points underscored.I'm impressed.
SilHello, first I would like to start with a short summary. In the film there is an experiment based on human psychology. There are guardians, -whose try to have the authority- and prisoners –whose are the victims of guardians ego’s-. The experiment is that these two group of people should obey to rules in a kind way for a couple of weeks. Every group has a leader in itself and they have rules. If they become successful they get 14k$ in two weeks. In the film, we see the procesess that if they are going to make it or nah. For me the actual collapse of the moral values when is the big fat black guy can’t hold his ego and start to humiliate people. I think like that because right away he humiliates people, he enjoys and everything goes like a domino stone. For me the most influential character is number 77 because he doesn’t obey to rules like a sheep and questionizes those requirements. Even though he gets punishment, he doesn’t give up and continues. As a wise said “ You lose when you give up, not when you lose.” The problem was brought up is that people always lose control when it comes to controlling your ego. As we learned in class, people live to satisfy their egos and we this example in this movie also. It’s so simple that those guardians only get to be higher rank for a 14 days but still they can’t control themselves and act like a boss. And also the point of the experiment – directors idea- was to control people without violence ( if i don’t remember it wrong). But as we see its impossible because without any fearful sanction people don’t stop resisting. Fear is the easiest way to control a group of people. Because fear is the thing that designs our actions. As an example, the fear of being poor, being underestimated from others pushes us to work and impress others. Although its an useful way to control people it’s not long-lasting because fear is like a flavor. After you have it a lot, you get used to it and you start to control that feeling. I didin’t find the ending satisfying because if i were number 77 I would chop that black guy’s head off. He made me so mad.
YanıtlaSilOh, I know you would chop his head off! But would that be the right solution? An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.Would that make us any different? Wouldn't that be using fear over others?
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YanıtlaSilThe Experiment is a thriller and drama movie based on Das Experiment movie. Both movies are based on a real-life event – Stanford prison experiment. Although the events are not very same, the resolution brought up is the same. It is that humans can be evil. It shows us that humans can hide their evilness not to be judged by society or not to be punished by laws. Fear in our world makes those people acting as adequate as possible. But in experiment they understood the ways to get with their crimes. The movie shows us that humans have animalistic characteristics, and in a few days of extreme conditions human traits can be faded for some people. In the movie, we see that most of the prisoners and one guardian (Bosch) did not turn savages. They somehow maintained own moral values. But the moral values collapsed for many in the movie. I think that the actual collapse happened when Barris and other guardians started torturing Travis. It was very cruel and disgusting.
YanıtlaSilThe most influential character in the movie is Travis. It is simply because he influences people a lot. He did not turn evil, nor he lost his mind. Travis was the leader of the prisoners. He acted balanced in the experiment. Many prisons were hysterical, but not Travis. He remained coldblooded. Travis had a terrible time during the experiment. He was tortured physically and psychologically, he was humiliated. What he experienced changed Travis and I think his views on life also. The bruises he got are symbols of violence. Travis is a brave man. He does not even take the guardians serious because he sees that they are degraded man.
But we see that fear can oppress any kind of people. Our daily fears depress us, make us feel bad. What I noticed in the last years, different fears affect a person differently. The movie draws attention to the method of control by using fear. I think it is effective. In democratic states, people are influential on laws and the laws are often decided based on morality, and safety of people. In this case, the legal punishments are effective at stopping crimes and decreasing crime rates. People do not live in fear, because the potential criminals feel the fear of be punished accordingly, and it actually keeps the society in safety. But in dictatorship states, the rulers (aka the guardians) use fear method for own benefit. In prisons, it is important to keep a discipline and be controlling, but there are certain taboos. It made me wonder why in the movie the ‘’guardians’’ had so much aggression and hate towards the ‘’prisoners’’. The prisoners did not do anything bad that may caused hate. And at some point it is pretty clear that the guardians let go the experiment, for example when they started taking prisoners to the room without cameras. I am pretty sure that room was there on purpose. All the guardians except one (Bosch) were cruel. And their leader was Barris – a religious man at his forties, who was living with his mother. But during the experiment he feels free to show himself. Barris was a sadist, he got sexual pleasure when tortured prisoners.
I did not like the ending at all. It was very unrealistic. First of all, it would be impossible for the participants of the experiment to stop fighting suddenly when the gates opened and the red lamp gave the signal. The prisoners were angry at the guardians. They were getting revenge. And I found it unrealistic that they suddenly stopped. They were full of rage and fury, they would beat them very badly. Also, never in my life I would believe that they just took the bus all together and took a ride home. It is impossible. Especially Travis, who was tortured most, I do not understand how he calmly looked at Barris. It was a disappointment for me how the movie ended. Althought it was nerving to hear that only the organiser of the experiment was arrested (and not Barris who killed Benjy), it was also relieving to see that Travis is safe and with the woman he loves.
Aggression and hate.. Interestingly enough, kids who are below 8 have similar attributes, and the educators are trying to teach them manners and rules to overcome the disease of childhood.
SilTravis is safe in the end, though, I would question his sanity and the required time for him to recover.. Donno.. Just sad. Thank you Deniz, I very much enjoyed it..