Flatland: The Movie

[SLemonspunk]

When did this come out and how come the women are shapes!?!?

[97kevinhuanle]

where can we go see this movie?

[Tabbimura]

Wat a moment! Flat landers would have no technology! And how could they have sidewalks, streets, trees and water fountains? That requires hight.

[TheRandomnatrix]

Well at least they have diversity. I mean they're not supporting square supremacy, so that's a relief.

[facilitator626]

In "Flatland" and in religion, you can only stand in one place (I.e.) 2-D room. The 3rd dimension (spiritually) has "up-down" orientations as well (I.e., RULE/SERVE).

Jesus is a Servant... Get it now???

[facilitator626]

This is a spiritual allegory. It parallels movement into the Holy of Holies. Religion is "up-down" blind.

May Father bless you to hear Abbott's REAL intent. "He who has ears, let him (her) hear."

[warmonster9]

What song is that?

[Racingdominatior]

@warmonster9

It sounds like something from Lemony Snickit's "A Series of Unfortunate Events."

[thecherryblitz]

We watched this in math class and i wasn't really that bad :)

[Icey774548]

our math teacher makes us watch this when hes not there o O

[jamesmullard]

They removed the part about women being limited to being lines therefore making them much less intelligent than men although that part did not strike me as sexist at all in the book?

[femoman]

@jamesmullard Yeah. I'm guessing they removed that so that it was more a film about dimensions, etc. rather than a political allegory of the 18th century

[Jefferdaughter]

@femoman - Yes. But for clarification, I think you mean the 19th century, as the book was written in 1884. But the book worked from the beginning on many levels, (pun intended), not merely as a political allegory.

[poxart]

How can it be based on the book? that Hexagon had a woman voice! where's the rectangles? also not that all the fancy roads and grass shouldn't really be there as the can not see them in 2 dimensions.

[yahjyeable]

where can i buy a cd of this flatland and sphereland?could any1 knows where i can find a copy of this movie?

[wisper247537]

I saw the complete movie in school and the trailer is good for the movie but not for the book i mean like the book is so mathmatic

[wisper247537]

ok im reading the book flatland now in school it is so awesome but kinda offensive cause they say females r stupider then the isosceles triangle kla

[dolrz]

@wisper247537 I don't think the author, Abbott, meant it that way. He was remarking on how women were seen in Victorian society at the time, ie they only saw one dimension. He actually did a lot of campaigning to get women equal rights to education.

[wisper247537]

@dolrz

[wisper247537]

wow i guess

[dolrz]

This is just a notion as to what 4d is, but I find it interesting. If we now live in the 3d world, maybe when we leave this world we will go into the 4d world. This brings me to think of spirits, as they supposedly can move through 3d objects without breaking them, and can control time, as they can relive a moment over and over again. They can also observe us 3d people without us seeing them, unless they want us to... If you think about it it sort of fits.... well in my mind anyway.

[WenGobou]

@dolrz Yeah, if we were in their world and me moved up, they wouldn't see us.

[TheAnbessa]

@dolrz That is an interesting idea.

[redice1024]

I'm having trouble visualizing how they make anything out since they can only see an infinitely thin line of different shades.

[recurveninja]

@redice1024 Sight is described in the novel.

[redice1024]

@recurveninja are the lines colored?

[recurveninja]

@redice1024 In shades. Depending on where the fog is.

[felic70]

what happened to women being line segments

[ultrapersonthing]

@felic70 i imagine it would be too hard to animate sufficiently, as if you could see them from the top, they're partially 2d.

[SaltWaterHippo]

I think it's been anthropomorphized too much, people literally try to "see" in their head what other dimensions would look like but they will only ever see it from a 3D perspective because it's, most of the time described by visual 3D analogy to make it easier.

[maximumlex]

the people of flatland can't see eachother because they have 0.0000% thickness so they can't see how someone looks!! :p

[TechnoTime1]

That's not actually very clever.

Here's my explanation.

0d people see in their imaginations, which might even be 789d.

1d people see things in 0d, and can judge 2d distance (a dot).

2d people see things in 1d (an infinite row of dots, a line) and can judge 2d distance.

3d people see things in 2d (an infinite row of lines, like a movie screen) and can judge 3d distance.

4d people see things in 3d (like am infinite stack of movie screens), and can judge 4d distance.

[RhobarX]

I thought about it. If we see in 2d in the 3rd dimension, and 1d beings see everything as a point and the flatlanders as a line, a 4th dimensional being would see everything in 3d so as a space. can you imagine that? in forth dimension you have the power to apear and disapear everywhere in space you want to. amazing, isn't it? but was is this 3rd dimension? it has to be something diffrent, diffent form the mather we know. not even energy. if you find out, tell me.

[destinyhopefan112]

People in 4D can see everything in 3D as we can see everything in 2D. Imagine a piece of paper, we can see the whole piece of paper when we look from above. Imagine 4D seeing everything in 3D. 4D draw 3D objects inside a paper, and 3D draw 2D objects on the surface of a paper. 4D people can take things out of a 3D box without breaking the box. We can take things out of a 2D box without breaking it. Amazing, huh? Hard to imagine because we imagine everything in 3D.

[destinyhopefan112]

I meannn, people in 4D see everything in 4D ;O

[fermerwuvu]

in that case..we are living in the 4th dimension..which is somewhat true..the 4th dimension is time..as some say..we cant control our own dimension..as in the movie the flatlander coulndt control his 2d dimension..but we can control the 3rd dimension..and we can draw 3d too..so..it means that we are from the 4th dimension..right?

[synth77]

@fermerwuvu how is time the 4th dimesion because time is an illussion

[DragonGirl1136]

@synth77 Lunchtime doubly so.

[recurveninja]

@synth77 Not to mention that Time is not a member of Euclinian space.

[fermerwuvu]

you mean..whats the 4th dimension?..i dont acctually understand your question but i can tell you that a being from the 4th dimension will appear and disappear anywhere in space..yea thats true..but in our space..in the 3d space he will be able to do that..in his 4d world he cant do that..a 5d being can do that..and in the 5d world a 6d being can do that..get it?

[destinyhopefan112]

I'm not asking a question teehee :P You're making it a little complicated. No, we cannot draw 3D. It LOOKS 3D to us but actually it's in 2D - because it's flat, it's on a piece of paper. A 4D being would disappear and appear because they can walk through 3D objects. It's like a 3D being going through a 2D piece of paper like the thingy that happened in flatland o.O.

[GalliadII]

@fermerwuvu I think he ask what direction the 4th dimension is.

[walter0bz]

this is how the Greys see us

[jessica3llen]

how would any of you know what it is like in a real 2d world? apparently none of you have read the novel by Edwin A. Abbott

[s29382820]

In a real 2d world should have no cars, trains, lakes, and roads, because they are things in 3d. And they are not walking ''on'' the plane.

[SpaceTime4D]

Right: those train tracks show there is a (slight) third dimension in this film. I got this for download, and they made some changes, but the plane changed, such as within buildings.

I'd suggest for you the other Flatland film, made in January 2007 by Ladd Ehlinger Jr. It sticks much more to the rules of two dimensions, plus it's longer. I ordered Ehlinger's version, and it should arrive in two days...

[s29382820]

Yeah, SpaceTime4D, I know a lot of Ehlinger's version. That's a feature film . Unfortunatly, I'm a Taiwanese, I want to see that film, but I dunno why it can't be found in taiwan...only in western countries.

[fermerwuvu]

i can give it to you..if you want by a link so you can download it..or from skype..

[fermerwuvu]

yea that movie is better..its graphics are kinda worse..but still the rules and the lenght is better..i downloaded yesterday

[generalflood]

Anyone know the song in this trailer, I'm sure I've heard it before.

[destinyhopefan112]

wait im confused. Do we see things in 3D? 'cause....the "3D" you see is only caused by brightness and shadows...I mean, imagine it....That makes the "height" we see "length"...

[chobrocoli]

actually, within about a metre we CAN see in three dimensions, however further away we see things in a 2d manner, but we can still percept the distances for instance by comparing the percepted size of an object, like a car, with the size a car actually has. Well that's how I've understood it from browsing web pages about stereoscopy at least.

[gww1]

You can see in 3d much further than a metre, if you have good vision you can easily see the depth that hills are several kilometers away. The brain can interpret extremely small differences in what each eye sees

[Brittney1149]

dude my sister told me about flatland .... now she got me interested!!!!!!!

[sylvielmna]

I would have liked it if the screen only appeared as a vertical line, with different shades for some parts of the movie, to depict their point of view. Also, in the book, color was disastarous, so they banned it.

[davidmvquez]

this would be so much better if they didnt make it a stupid cartoon, if they made it more realistic and just had a guy narrating over it, it might be a little more boring in appearence, but it would be alot more interesting

[Gief18PlusVids]

what was the guy who wrote this using...

[weckar]

wait, wasn't like all colour forbidden in Flatland (the book version)

[aaron12345432]

a 4-d creature could see inside 3-d creatures somehow (as well as closed buildings), and would appear as only 3-d objects to us.

[satweavers]

The creators of this movie don't get the one fundamental basic of this concept. There is NO Z Axis, Only X and Y. Therefore a character cannot step onto the floor of a trolly car that is on tracks that are on the ground. that's four layers of stuff that are stacked up in the Z Axis. That's one reason I liked The Planiverse by A. K. Dewdney. His 2-D world was a vertical cross-section, so characters had a planet to stand on, but they could not walk past one another. One climbed over the other.

[jubjub444]

ok theres two movies? i like the other one better though...

[dannyfan101]

I want to see this movie! Too bad it's only a half hour long.

The music sounds just like the music from "A Series of Unfortunate Events"

[livelovelaugh27]

i just watched it in my physics class, its seriously the most amusing thing i've ever seen...unfortunately, i was trying to explain it to one of my friends and she thought i was on drugs when i started trying to explain spherius and the wise circles =p

[thask8nerd]

whoah, i didn't know there was a movie. my geometry teacher gave it to me in the ninth grade and i loved that book. there's a sequel by a different author called flatterland. the second one goes beyond just dimensions and involves other areas of math. it's really good.

[Kralgon]

also, I saw this at MathFest, and I was extremely impressed. It looks very different from this trailer, and you should look at the new trailer which is also on youtube.

[danojohnson]

Hey, you can buy the DVD at their flatlandthemovie site now. I can't wait!

[Cistane]

flatlanders wouldnt be able to see each other...

[XdragonSB]

they would.

read the novel.

[Cistane]

no they wouldnt, they would all be infinitely thin on the "z-axis" if they are supposedly living on an x-y plane.

[Kralgon]

sure they could. they only see in 1-dimension, so they would see eachother as lines (just as we see in 2-dimensions, so we see eachother as flat shapes). just because we're 3-dimensional and infinitely thin in 4-dimensions doesn't stop us from being able to see eachother.

[Cistane]

that correlation makes absolutely no sense. there would be nothing to see, everything is infinitely thin. yeah we see in 2 dimensions, but we're not looking at the infinitely thin part of a two dimensional surface, we're looking at the surface itself. if consciousness was possible at all on that dimension, it would probably be some different set of sensations all together, completely foreign to you or i.

[mg115ca]

We are 3-d, so we see a 2-d image (discounting depth perception, which is a result of having multiple eyes, not multiple dimensions). They are 2-d so they see a 1-d image, a line with patterns on it, the same way we see a plane with patterns on it.

Those 1-d creatures he talks to at one point, assuming they have anything resembling eyes, would see a single dot, moving closer and farther from them.

The real trick is imagining what a 4-d creature would be like, and what they would see.

[stickybelvedere]

yes thats true .but i believe that this is the best way to get the basic idea of dimension across

[stickybelvedere]

a 2 dimensional thing would not have eyes, they would probably adapt a sense that allows them to detect the 1 dimensional things images around them

[baetores]

They do have eyes, you see that in the movie.

[stickybelvedere]

im not talking about the movie. im saying if there really was a 2 dimensional thing./

[baetores]

Sorry accidentally marked as spam, it wasn't intentional. 2D people's eyes should be right at the front of their faces. If you look at someone in profile the nose is before it.

[leeshajoi]

In the original novel they had a light-sensitive 'eye' on one vertex. It was also the creature's mouth. Don't ask me how *that* was supposed to work.

[ForumFreak]

Actually, it had a separate eye and mouth. What's even weirder is that in Lineland, male lines had two mouths at each end.

[lelokong]

all matter are made of atom, atom cannot be infinity thin.

[StephenAndLeo]

that si only inthe 3rd demention

[Direwolf56]

what about the 4th dimension and the 5th?

[pbrain8]

What is the song used in this trailer? I think I've heard it before...?

[MochaKimono]

I'm skeptical as well, but I think if it was -exactly- like the book, ie, completely in black and white with an entirely blank landscape and lines for women, etc, it wouldn't make for such a good animation. So I'm sorta glad they 'modernized' it to make it more accessible and familiar to the common person.

[RGBandit]

this movie is more full of holes than swiss cheese, and it would be extremely boring, if i was going to see it, and judging by this trailer i am not

[steveasat2]

No reason you couldn't see an enclosed fountain if the material enclosing it were translucent. But you're right, a black-and-white film shot from a Flatlander's perspective would not only be more accurate, but hella fun to watch too.

[whithgarystrong]

Nice to see some quality videos finally. Check out my vids sometime if you like clips like this. Usually I'm posting at videos.lostfrog 'dot' com.

[mathisyahoo]

why do the bad guys always have a strange accent. Like an accent makes you bad.

[saggiehead]

we all have accents

[rorcon]

An accent makes you sound foreign, which americans think makes you bad.

[SeymoreOmnis]

not americans specifically. All humans fear what is different and foreign.

[allthatyousee17]

The art isn't very well thought out and doesn't have any creativity either. How could a 2d world have different surfaces to walk over, trains on rails, cars (neither with any visible engine), fountains (which flatlanders couldn't see as its surrounded by walls), and houses with windows and stairs? And it looks more like an arial view of a typical american town. Not very inspiring.

[DanHarkless]

Yeah, I have to agree with that assessment. Check out the FlatlandTheFilm channel for an independent production of "Flatland" that's visually stunning and is a lot more true to Edwin Abbott's ruminations on the physics and realities of a 2-D world.

(I'm not connected with them -- just a satisfied owner of the DVD.)

[allthatyousee17]

Actually, since posting that my friend has emailed the people behind the movie, and the reply said that the trailer was quite old, and made before they began to really work the world out. This guy said he was an engineer, and that he'd been thinking cxarefully how a 2d world would work, no trains, surfaces, etc. No doubt they read Planiverse, Flatterland etc for research.

[DanHarkless]

Okay, that's promising. I'm kind of skeptical after this trailer that they'll radically redesign it to be more similar to the take in FlatlandTheFilm (Ladd P. Ehlinger Jr.)'s version, where you can see the Flatlanders' internal organs, etc., but here's hoping.

[danojohnson]

This looks great! The animation, the talented actors, and I read it's made for teachers!

[smartboyathome]

Thanks for this trailer! I have been trying to see them all.