Although aware of some disparities with the instructions for the final assignment, here’s what I want to do:

               Rick and Morty is an exceptionally self-conscious piece  of science-fiction. The two main characters, Rick the scientist and his grandson Morty, are obviously a redefinition of Back to the Future’s Doc and Marty. But more than in just appearance, Rick and Morty, is very explicit about the show’s close attention to discussions within theoretical physics about the fabric of our reality. Specifically, the show adopts the multiverse theory to manipulate the plot. This hypothesis about the universe, of which Dr. Stephen Hawking and Dr. Brian Greene among others are proponents, is currently in the center of a heated discussion among theoretical physicists.

Science fiction has always had a close relationship to the historic moment and its technological capabilities and advancements. I get that the project is meant to be about the past & present, but I think by looking into Rick and Morty there is a lot to be said about the present and the future. We live in a time of groundbreaking theoretical discoveries, and the population can only be perplexed when they read about what has been discovered when they read their newspaper in the morning. CERN’s Large Haldron Collider has only been operational for a handful of years. The data dumps provided to the public by CERN call for a new moment in Science Fiction.

If the general public were more acquainted with Einstein’s theory of relativity, then most popular science fiction would be regarded as completely unrealistic. Spaceships in Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica use some form of “hyperspeed” to travel vast distances across space, but time remains unaltered. To the ship’s crew it might seem like the trip only took a second, but how long was that second, in their loved one’s planet? In the digital information era we are educated, and we have a new set of ideas about what constitutes the possible.

In a celebrated (among its nerds) episode of Rick and Morty, they screw up the world beyond repair. To this problem Rick has a simple solution: he creates portal to a parallel universe and kills the Rick and Morty of that reality and they just take his place. Where science fiction has historically travelled long, Rick and Morty instead travels wide. Tales of the past were about exploring our universe in faraway distances with the aid of propelled space ships; today that notion to me doesn’t seem very feasible.

For the project, although the description asks for a past text, I thought about the possibility of either creating a platform to navigate the multiple dimensions traveled by Rick and Morty, possibly tracing the itinerary of the Rick and Morty from reality C-137. What platform? I DON’T KNOW, I’M SORRY, I SHOULD HAVE MET WITH KIMON, but happened is that up until yesterday I was going to do a navigateable Youtube channel that led you to different discussion videos. I’m still somewhat keen on this idea. I thought what I would do is form a narrative argument, tape an narration with visual aids, divide it up into sections and create a web that can be accessed in the user’s preferred order: After watching the introduction one could chose to see the video on the history of sci-fi, or the one about multiverse fan theories, or the one on a certain episode, etc.

As for the theoretical framework, I think the material from authors cited by our time/space week will be the most useful to go off from, I also expect to use theoretical physics arguments, Rick and Morty.

Anyways, this is what I got. This video shows an example of something alike what I had in mind, but mine would have variations and interactivity. I wanted to be an audiovisual thing because lately I’ve been under the impression that no one wants to read anymore; most people would rather see something, even if it’s heavily based on text. I thought I could try to make something enjoyable, and good. But also critical, I wanted it to have a takeaway for the watcher, an opinion. And the more people it can attract, the better. If this is all wrong I can start from scratch, but I am exited about this idea. Also I want to add Rick and Morty to the timeline, can I? What about Space Dandy? Or is it only for stuff we have seen?