NOTE: this is getting too damn long. I'm gonna post it and edit in the rest of my theory later I have homework now.
So yeah, spoilers. If you haven't seen upstream color yet, go watch it a few times its on netflix. Don't read another fucking word. I mean it! . . . Still here? You absolutely sure you've seen it enough times to form your own conclusions? . . . OK: So I finally think I have an explanation for Upstream Color (Steve Carruth's brilliant second film. He's the guy who made Primer, another movie you need to go watch 3 or 9 times).
Some terms first: Blue Stuff: The actual drug. Doesn't seem to be consumed by exhibiting its effect. Can be carried by any(?) living life form, and causes some sort of connection between its carriers (Explained later in more depth). Blue Stuff Tea is the processed form used by the Kids.
The Kids: The Thief gives these kids a slightly safer version of the Blue Stuff and may or may not be experimenting on them and/or teaching them.
Human Carrier: Any human who has the Blue Stuff in them.
The Thief: The man who kidnaps Kris and the other Human Carriers and doses them with the Blue Stuff in order to control them.
The Sampler: The man who records sounds, keeps the pigs, etc. (I'll be going in depth on him later)
I'm gonna lay it out as coherently as possible, its alot more transcendent than the normal explanations for the movie and it directly contradicts the Worm-Pig-Lotus explanation provided by Carruth himself. I don't like that explaination for one specific reason: How did this contained loop get started? How did the Thief get his hands on the Blue Stuff in the first place? How did the Sampler begin experimenting on the Human Carriers and why?
The explaination is going to be slightly out of order, due to the fact that the story is not told entirely in order and I believe this is important for laying out the theory due to the very nature of Carruth's work.
The Thief explained: I believe the Thief to be a botanist or a chemist. He probably wasn't a bad person at the beginning, he would have been the type of person who you'd never suspect was capable of ruining people's lives like he does in the movie. This is implied by his apparently excellent (almost mentorish) relationship with the Kids he is allowing to experiment with the Blue Stuff in its slightly more harmless processed state. He probably experimented before creating the first Human Carriers and discovered the usefulness of the Blue Stuff on a deeper level. I imagine he was tempted by endless possibility and eventually became addicted to the power.
START HERE (SMPLR1)
SMPLR1 The Sampler: I totally disagree with the assertion by Carruth that the Sampler was a bad guy. My theory is that the Sampler was exposed to the Blue Stuff at some point in the distant past, perhaps in his youth. He has spent decades of his life researching it's effects in an attempt to explain what happened to him. (Who knows what a higher dose of the Blue Stuff would do to a human being.) He exhibits an ability to observe what is happening to the Human Carriers purely by observing the minute changes of behavior in the pigs. CONTINUE TO: THE BLUE STUFF (ctrl F - BLSTF1)
SMPLR2
At this point, much of the explanation becomes supposition. The Sampler is exposed to the Blue Stuff at a very young age, probably by consuming contaminated fruit. He lives alone in the middle of nowhere so it would make sense that he would be eating unprocessed wild food. He has a profound, probably psychedelic experience, trapped in the consciousness stream of all life exposed to the Blue Stuff (which is everything, see BLTSF2 shortly) without any external influence to mask and alter the experience. He would have awoken with probably only imprinted memories of the experience, but over time would have recalled more and more and his own long term altered behavior would have driven him to discover an explanation for his experience. CONTINUE TO BLSTF2
SMPLR3
The Sampler eventually learns to control his conciousness and gains access on some scope to the conciousness stream on a deaper level.
SMPLR4
The Sampler notes a disturbance in the Stream when the Thief begins dosing people with a single looping strain of the Blue Stuff. He tracks down the new (and possibly, only other) sentient being fully immersed in the Stream and determines that the grubs are the immediate proximal source of the Blue Stuff. The Sampler obtains some of the Thief's strain but since the Thief hasn't taken it himself he is unable to determine the Thief's location or methods directly. He instead tracks the Human Carriers left by the Thief, obtaining their Blue Stuff by removing the grubs from their body and implanting it into the Pigs, presumably after innoculating the Pigs with his own strain of the Blue Stuff. This explains his ability to transport his conciousness through the pigs to directly observe the actions and proximate conciousness of the Human Carriers. He slowly devolps a method to draw the Human Carriers to him by effecting the conciousness of the Grubs by listening to the infrasonics and focusing his own consiousness of them onto the worms and by proxy the Human Carriers. By the time this occurs to Kris he has developed an almost perfect method. Move to end of document: controlf SOUNDS1
BLSTF1 The Blue Stuff:
The Blue Stuff is a substance which has existed since the beginning of time. All life has evolved on earth in direct contact with and under the influence of undetectable amounts of it. Carruth states that it suppresses consciousness. I say it defocuses it. When exposed to the Blue Stuff the complex human mind acts like a lense going from narrow angle to wide angle and as a result the mind is unable to focus on anything leaving the body open to manipulation. This defocusing effect lasts even after the direct source of the Blue Stuff is removed. When a being absorbs the Blue Stuff, the Stuff becomes imprinted with the essence of that being's consciousness. (Being 0 is the Imprint Being) A later being dosed with the same Blue Stuff will find it easier to focus the Blue Stuff's scope down into the Imprint Beings consciousness, usually doing so unconsciously. (Being 1 will experience consciousness from Being 0). This happens in both directions, downstream and upstream. (From being 1 to being 0 as well). All beings down the line in both directions feel imprints from all other beings in both directions, but the intensity of the imprint fades as you travel further down the chain in either direction. (Being 0 will feel being 2 but less strongly than Being 1). This explains how Kris and Jeff exchange childhood memories. (Jeff was likely the Thief's last victim, and if he is 0 the chain is: Jeff 0 -> Pig Jeff 1 -> water somehow (excrement?) (2) -> Plants (3)2 -> Grubs (4)3 -> Kris (5)4) This chain effect will be dealt with further in a moment, for now, please return to the Sampler.
BLSTF2
The Blue Stuff has primary and secondary effects. Anyone exposed to the Blue Stuff will continue to be effected by it forever. The level at which a being is exposed determines a permanent level of primary effects. The primary effect of the Blue Stuff is to detune your consciousness in a sense. At lower levels this may result in empathy and such phenomenon such as ESP. At higher levels the effect can be overwhelming and send your consciousness out of synch with the proximate world of your senses, the "Consciousness Stream" of the Blue Stuff. All beings contain an amount of the Blue Stuff. The Blue Stuff predates life on earth and probably existed in very high levels in early life forms until the finite amount of the Blue Stuff became rather well distributed among all living things. A sentient being can learn to consciously control the Consciousness Stream of the Blue Stuff. It is easier to focus on Beings which are closer to you on the particular strain which you carry. Assimilating more Blue Stuff adds a link in your strain to the strain of the Blue Stuff you assimilate. (See graphic *not yet added*) (continue to BLSTF3 or read SMPLR3 and onward for the remainder of the plot summary)
BLSTF3
Further information about the propagation of Blue Stuff The Blue Stuff travels in waves along with the cycles of life, consumption, even water and weather cycles. When these waves meet (mass deaths from a plague, 2 creatures giving birth to many), the ammount of Blue Stuff transfered to that point is increased. Example: Mass Deaths: 10 humans die simultaneously in a cave. Blue Stuff available in that cave is now 10h where H is the average ammount of blue stuff in a human. Basically, put blue stuff in, get same ammount of blue stuff out, in different concentrations based on the given process. This creates a universal web of conciousness which I will call the Stream and which all beings access at all times on a subconsious level. A sentient being can more easily access those consiousness's which exist closer to it upon the Web.
SOUNDS1
The Sampler is attempting to record a sound he and all of the other Human Carriers feel and hear simultaneously: The sound of Life Itself.
NOTE: this is getting too damn long. I'm gonna post it and edit in the rest of my theory later I have homework now.
--------------------
hmm...
Edited by CodeLion (01/27/14 02:56 PM)
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
High THC Strains 
Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order 
Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale
CodeLion 
Edit 
Reply 
1 2 3 4 all )
Papaver
trendal
Senor_Doobie
Toddo
Anonymous
SlackerKM
filthysock