So I've survived the internship intact for about two months at this point. All is going really well, and about everything I can tell you about what I'm working on can be found on the Disney Parks Blog or in this Galactic Nights video.
The global headquarters for Imagineering is, as many of you probably know, in Glendale, California, which is a lot closer to Los Angeles proper than my hometown. As such, I've been exploring the sights and sounds of everything the LA area has to offer, from chilling out in Westwood to exploring Griffith Park to checking out the infamous Hollywood Boulevard.
Hollywood Boulevard gets a lot of crap for not living up to expectations - it's busy, it smells like pee and weed, random people will harass you with their mix tape, and nightmarish off-brand characters will try to get you to take pictures with them. Despite the hype, stars don't hang out there beyond scripted, highly guarded events, the Grauman's Chinese theater is usually cordoned off, and you'd be lucky to take of a picture of your star's star on the Walk of Fame without getting bowled over by walking traffic. However,
I find it fascinating.
Not for the reason you'd think. Slight detour -
Down the freeway a bit, in downtown LA, you'll find an old abandoned hotel that looks a little familiar. The Bradbury Building was used as one of the core sets in Blade Runner*, a favorite movie of mine starring Harrison Ford as an ex-cop who hunts down robots.
Blade Runner has been hailed for decades as the quintessential cyberpunk experience. Some say that it touched off the whole movement. Cyberpunk is a genre that incorporates futuristic technologies into stories of the everyman sticking it to The Man, all bathed in a neon glow. The cyberpunk movement came to prominence in the 1980's as a revolt against boring, unrealistic Utopian visions of the future in favor of gritty, more "realistic" dystopian dreams.
Back to Hollywood Boulevard - it's the cyberpunk aesthetic realized in the real world - and nobody was even trying. The huge overwrought structures of the Hollywood and Highland complex and the El Capitan theater and all the pageantry and classic architecture that was supposed to be the playground of the rich and famous has been taken over (except for said scripted and secured events) by the destitute and desperate. The reclamation by those locked out of the higher echelons of society has, in a sense, been aided by the advancement of technology - even the guy begging with a fast food soda cup has a smart phone and accepts Venmo. Everyone is trying to get their shot, break the system a little, see what goes on at the celebrity level - all while celebrities are off in Malibu. All this, bathed in the glow of brightly lit electronic billboards promising girls, food, tech - and of course, the classic neon.
The classic cyberpunk stories were all about asking the tough questions of what it meant - what it means - to be human, to be alive. On Hollywood, you see all sorts - rich, poor, locals, tourists, celebrities, gawkers, etc. - all painfully alive, yet apart from each other.
It's a reminder that technology doesn't solve all problems, and that the future sucks - at least if you're on the wrong side of the stantions.
But hey - better an action-packed dystopia where you could win the lottery than a boring utopia, right?
*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Phillip K. Dick, on which Blade Runner is based, is often cited as the first cyberpunk novel and is a great book, regardless. Lead underwear, anyone?
