This is, quite possibly, the best lovecraftian horror film ever created. People think it's about tentacles and fishmen (and I guess for Lovecraft himself it was about racism, but that's beside the point here,) but the true horror of a lovecraftian monster is being something that we cannot understand, and the horror of being made *to* understand that which we cannot. A Square is exposed to and forced to comprehend a world for which he has no words, a world that he, as an organism, is not equipped to interact with or understand, he can only stand in awe of the terrible beauty before him. And then he is sent back, and the words he gained slip from his mind because he could barely process, much less understand, what he saw. In trying to explain, he sounds like a raving madman even though his ramblings make sense to *us* as three dimensional beings. Don't let the wacky music and goofy characters fool you. A Square went through the equivalent of getting picked up by Cthulhu and given a tour of R'lyeh.
It is sort of present in Lovecraft's work. It is mentioned a few times that the Old Ones are, by our definition, incredibly technologically advanced to the point that there's no distinction between any of the scientific fields or their own biology. This can be seen in some of the lesser eldritch beings, like the Elder Things, which are not quite as advanced enough that we don't recognize what they have as technology (for one thing, the Shoggoths are basically industrial robots they created). This leads to the very interesting idea that the Old Ones aren't necessarily evil (well, except for Nyarlathotep, but he's a dick even by the morals of the other Old Ones) they just operate on such a different scale than humanity that everything they do ends up destructive to us in one way. By just waking up and walking around Cthulhu causes untold devastation, which to him is basically just taking a stroll around his yard. To him, we're just random insects wandering about that he pays no mind to (and which Nyarlathotep burns with a magnifying glass for fun). Which makes the ending of the Call of Cthulhu really funny to me, because imagine you just woke up, open your front door, and a beetle just smacks right into the side of your head and gives you a little cut. I would probably decide to just go back to bed too.
@@Canyon_Lark I think what they meant is that it gets to the heart of what gives Lovecraftian horror it's identity, which most movies really struggle with.
I love the detail of how A Square gets put back into Flatland backwards, and can use that to prove the third dimension exists. Notice how at the start he and B Square faced the same direction and had to have one upside down if they faced eachother. And when A Square comes back he’s now able to look his brother in the eye. A rotation like that is completely impossible in only 2D
Now im tripping out imagining how the same thing would *somehow* be able to translate in the 4th dimension, IE rotating on the 4th axis would alow a person to return to 3d physically flipped like he does in his world. Now that im thinking about it vsauce did a short on that didnt he?
@@RavenTheSergal idk if Vsauce did a vid on it, but ur on the cusp of what scientists end up calling the "simulation universe" theory. from MY understanding, depending on ur school of thought, there's either 9 or 11 dimensions, with an infinite number of fractal dimensions, as about, so below, etc etc. have fun! dont get lost tho! it TRULY is a rabbithole and i've known many a friend to get lost in the warrens of that rabbithole... never to really come out/come back the same...
Imagine getting dragged to heaven by the closest thing to God you've ever seen in your life, only for both you and him to get put on trial and then witnessing the beginning of a massive war you can hardly make sense of. A Square's got it pretty rough!
I love how once he starts thinking he never stops. The closest thing to a God he's seen tells him a fourth dimension doesn't exist but his new understanding of logic says that there must be more. Sphere accidentally taught him way more than what he himself thought.
@@Dalton_Boardman2000 Are we really any different? Something simply does not add up. Our explanation of our world and our mythology must be insufficient... Or at least the predominate narratives. Something must be that we have overlooked.
Imagine getting pulled into a jury trial as a witness to Nylarthotep of many faces and fucking Azathoth. There’s so many things about this stuff that is absolutely amazing
Well, supossedly, Enoch was plucked off earth, shown around heaven by fallen angels wanting back into heaven and asked to represent them and bargain for them (hired as their lawyer?) and sent back to earth after. So.... (Not an expert on the books of enoch but i think it was something like that. )
One of the most cruel thing a fourth dimensional being could do to a human is flip them around, effectively mirroring us. All the proteins in our bodies would be mirrored as well, so food would probbably taste entirely diffrent (along with a lot of more detrimental side effects). Thats of course assuming the process of rotating us doesn't make all our organs fly out our new fourth dimensional sides.
@@Taricus Flatland was written in the 19th century partly as a criticism of Victorian values. The fact that women are lower status (and lower dimensional) than everybody else was originally meant to be satire.
@@thorjelly I know. It has a lot of satire in it. I love that book, especially because I was a math major in undergrad LOL! I tell people about it, but they just don't get it half the time. They tune out as soon as it sounds like geometry or graph theory LOL!
i originally watched this because of people saying how similar it was to the new Bill Cipher lore, but i actually have never been able to sit through a movie at full attention like this before. I genuinley thought I'd watch this, make a stupid joke about "wow guys bill cipher!!!!" and forget about it, but this has been the best movie ive probably ever watched before
their are two perspectives to the situation. in the negative view. Only politicians who are psychopaths/sociopaths rise to the top because they are more willing to plot against there fellowman and thus can more easily rise than an emphatic person In the positive view. leaders of a nation have a lot of burden on their shoulders and thus must be in control of their emotions at all times. He must as rationally as possible in his view and understanding to make the right decision
@@groomschild1617 A third perspective: Child mortality was an accepted and understood Fact of Life prior to the medical advances of recent centuries. When this was written, there was still a large percentage of children that passed away even in the most developed world. Yes, it was sad, but frankly, it was almost expected.
You would think his friends and family members would have noticed? To us as 3D beings the change isn’t super noticeable, but to 2D beings it would be very obvious since they have asymmetrical “faces” (the side with the eye and mouth). If you’re a flatlander looking at A square’s “face”, his eye initially is to the left of his mouth, but it changes to the other side after he gets flipped in the higher dimension.
One of the best case studies of world building ever. Everything, from the politics to the way the houses are built, is indicative of how a world like this would work.
@@dowesschule each generation gains an angle triangles are lower class citizens while squares and Pentagons are seen as gentleman the more angles the higher the class
God, watching this movie suddenly blow up and the comments section fill with praise is so amazing to see. I’ve always thought of this film as an underrated masterpeice.
This is probably the best representation of a 4d world. The idea of getting us invested in a 2d world, making us fell like a part of it, only to shatter that perspective along with the characters, is genius. Not to mention the mirroring of the 3d world having all the problems of the 2d, and the weird tone makes this so, so good. I need to watch this high. This being an adaptation of an 1884 book makes so much more sense, its old sci fi weirdness, no wonder.
not sure you do want to watch while high. it didn't make any sense to me while high right now, why were their brains in spinning gears? And what would you even call a 4D world?
@@Flowerbombs-135 Bill Cipher's home dimension is based off of the original story of Flatland. While it isn't implied Bill's dimension and the one in this film are the same dimensions, it's still kind of horrifying to think about.
That ending man. Hes been through so much, most of which he cant comprehend. Being sucked out of his dimension again, hes just broken and confused. He just pleads with whatevers out there. "Please, i need to meet my wife and kids in the north."
In the book, A Square ends up in jail, going crazy, but here, the glowing point he encounters is a 4th-dimensional being. In other words, it's a happy ending because it symbolizes his transcendence to the fourth dimension, where he achieves more than what the three-dimensional sphere (forgot his name) attempted by gaining a higher understanding of reality. That's not the best explanation, but hopefully, it conveys the general idea. I'm not sure what other people think, but I like this ending better. The original was much more bleak. Cheers.
@Nileppez the original does see m more sad, but at least its definitive, but here, the open-endedness and ambiguity of it is more bleak for me. Although he MAY transcend to a 4th dimension, its not for sure, he could be so broken that he just can't go on.
Another detail I quite like, it looks like Flatlanders don't have nervous systems, and instead use radio waves to communicate between their brain and body. The cog around their brain looks like the functional mechanism in the radios, after all, and senator chromatiste was able to continue fleeing after having his brain severed. It also makes sense due to the constructions of 2 dimensional space, you can't route a nerve around an organ, but radio waves can pass through both organs and each other.
Oh yeah I was curious about the fact that Chromatiste was able to continue living despite the brain being severed. This makes sense. Though I wonder if the outer walls of their flesh keep the radio waves contained so there's no cross-talk.
@@Yipper64 I doubt it, considering chromatiste didn't seem encumbered in any way while fleeing. they might use something vaguely analogous to networking protocols, like having their DNA imprinted into the wavelengths. A wifi router has a latency of under 100 milliseconds, sometimes as low as 5 or 6. Considering that nerves have a delay of 30-60 milliseconds, that does mean networked radio waves would be an acceptable substitute for nerves.
@@kurtreber9813 Yes, in fact, it would be a pretty good method to figure out the third dimension exists, as they would notice that somehow the energy of the radio waves decreases faster than it should (in a 2D space, the intensity should decrease linearly with distance, while in 3D space, it decreases with the square of the distance) So by noticing that Radio energy is somehow "leaking" out of their plane, they could deduce the existence of an extra dimension where the radio waves dissipate. In fact this very method was/is actually used in real life by physicists with gravitational waves to probe the universe for extra spatial dimensions, that are predicted by some exotic models. Here is a quote from an article from 2018 in the CERNCOURIER "Gravitational hunt for extra dimensions" "Some modifications of general relativity, such as the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) model, involve the addition of extra dimensions accessible to gravity. If such extra dimensions are large, and thus not rolled up to a microscopic size as predicted by some beyond-Standard Model theories, part of the gravitational field would “leak” into the extra dimensions. Therefore, GWs arriving at detectors such as those of the LIGO and VIRGO observatories would be weaker than expected."
The most profound bit in the story is when A square talks about the possibility of other dimensions and realities and A sphere shrugs it off and despite the enormous irony, he says those people in his 3-D world who say what A Square said are being illogical and implies they are mentally ill. Think about that...
Works the same way with fiction. Everyone thinks their own paradigm is the ultimate. But taking into account the infinitude of imaginary worlds out there, the likelihood that we're a dream approaches certainty.
This would only be true if dreams contained fully actualized realities and weren't just dreams. But yes, this is the basic logic behind belief in the simulation hypothesis@@tahunuva4254
There are two groups of people here. The people who knew about this before gravity falls fans realized it was referenced in gravity falls and the gravity falls fans
I forget the video, but somewhere on TH-cam exists a video of a guy talking about Mr. Game and Watch from smash brother to contextualize living in 2d. He brought this movie up in the video and that's how I found it. Really wish I remember the video it was a banger
I like how no flatlander notice that the A-square that has been transported back from 3rd dimension is flipped (as in mirrored like rotated against the 3rd dimension axis)
@@815TypeSirius could a 4D creature even touch us? There would probably 2 options if you tae 2D creatures as an example: 1. A 2D creature has no depth and therefore nothing a 3D creature could touch. 2. A 2D creature would be extreme fragile in 3D like a realy realy thin sheet of glass. By a 3D creature touching the 2D creature, the 2D creature would probably break into the third dimension. I would imagin something similar would happen if a 4D creature tries to touch a 3D creature.
he said he couldn't see anything a bit before cuz of him deteriorating from being in 3 dimensions for so long, and even then he got sent down the elevator before the detonation, so idk about that.
I like the detail about their brains. Triangles have small brains (they are low-tier citizens, made to only follow orders); the general Triangle has a bigger brain, but it is visibly deteriorated (maybe because of his age and all the things that have screwed his mind along the years); circle senators have bigger brain cavities, but their brains themselves are small (sheep politicians, literally air-heads); president Circle has a slightly bigger brain, but the gear spinning around it is thin (he is smart enough to lead the others, but he's still unwise and foolish); only certain characters, like A Square, have big brains and thick gears.
Every time A Square had a moment of epiphany while in 3D, it made me feel how we probably would if we glimpsed into 4D. Fully seeing ourselves from before and after our deaths, fully understanding what it means to live and die and a better understanding of the 3D world you just cannot get without stepping up. This kind of sci fi is great for imagining what possibly could be there, if anything is there. We can totally sympathize with A Square
I described this movie to my friend as fascist circles and acid trips to other dimensions and they thought I dreamed it and made it up, thank you for posting this on TH-cam so I can prove them wrong and force them to watch a truly impactful movie and also the most bizarre movie I have ever seen
The first time we watched it was in geometry class and during lunch we all talked about how deep and meaningful it was but describing it to someone else is extremely hard
this is the only way to describe this XD at first I was like oh wow this could be cool for schools.... haha yeaa NOPPPEEE. a pure 2 hours of laughter and insanity, ain't nothing like it
Watched with my partner, her first time watching Flatland. Her impression, "I am amazed and disgusted and impressed and blown away. And everything. And just God everything."
In retrospective, the scene where A Square gets taken into 3D is magnificent, I compare it to Wall-E leaving into space and then the spaceship, a complete and drastic change of what we got accustomed to for a big portion of the movie. In a way, that's exactly what A Square felt, and we get to experience it as the audience.
I read this book as a pdf on my iPod touch on an airplane when I was maybe 12 years old. Over a decade later I still remember it so well. Enough to remember that in the book, Square says that educated people know females are actually very thin parallelograms. Speaking of which, A-square's wife is kind of a baddie. I think this interpretation of the peace cry is pretty hot. Same thing with that thing the imprisoned line did, morbid as it was.
@@FilmLadd thought so 😁 trying never hurts ;) maybe i will be able to find one somewhere online. Dope movie. Just found out about it 2 hours ago. Didn't expect to watch it until the end, love it and even get close with the characters. lol
I love that when he came back to flatland he was flipped from presumably landing in it facing the opposite direction, but I was expecting them to comment about it saying he looks different or something.
Of all the things that could have happened, seeing an HD upload of my favorite movie by the creator itself was not what I expected. This is basically my Christmas Present! The chatroom I moderate for Flatland Discussions is going a bit Hogwild at the moment, We're all ecstatic to see Flatland in this quality!! Thank you, Ladd.
Saw this ten years ago in my 6th grade math class. The movie did nothing but confuse me back then and it still does today, I guess my monkey brain is destined for working a forklift job after all. If you somehow come across this comment, I hope life is going good, Mr. Fugate.
It's an honest job. Without forklift drivers...well, we'd be carrying stuff by hand, one by one. This sentiment of the modern age, that only the high thinkers are owed respect and a living wage, it sickens me. Where I live, there's a saying: "The smartest city man doesn't eat if the peasant stops sh*tting." ...it sounds better in my language. Not to mention that I seem to detect a huge correlation between overall misery in society and just how open that "economic scissors" is. Even if they don't realize it, rich people would be a lot happier if the rest of us weren't stewing in uncertainty and inevitable dispossession. They are afraid to go out, lest they run into poor people, they resent everyone beneath them because of the sideways glances of "dude, you walking around in mink coat and I hafta decide if I eat butter or bread today", probably that's why most of them need a pill to sleep and a one to wake up. It wasn't like that, back when a simple job could get even a "monkey brain"(your words) at least a modest house and a modest car and a modest wife and children. The way we stand, if you don't have a house by the time you leave high school, it's a statistical impossibility that you are ever gonna have one, barring a lottery windfall or a dead relative's...bequeathings?(I'm almost certain I'm not using that word properly...) Jus' sayin'. If rich people want to be happier, they probably should give us more stuff. Not gonna happen, but that's what would help. Until a forklift driver like you, and even a grocery bagger can build a existence from their honest work, things are just going to continue to deteriorate. ...sorry, rant over. I just like to type and I feel rather passionate about this subject.
Like a real politician using everything to there leverage, notice simply how much ol circle describes how he is a perfect leader... It was all a persasion
the way there's like, 3 or 4 plot lines that this could have gone down and instead it ended the way it did. hello? am i dreaming?? can anyone hear me? its so cold
I just realized, since the flatlanders' faces are basically just one-dimensional (at least as seen by other flatnaders) there is no way for their mouths to bend as seen by other flatlanders. It is impossible for the 2d muscles in their face to move the mouth to curve to make a smile or a frown. So they always just look at each other with that blank look on their face. A. Square, showing any emotion at all: ______ ᣄ | ¯¯¯¯
Emotions are mostly expressed through action / movement / voice rather than facial expression. And you are correct, that was the rationale for not having them do things like smile or frown. It would have simply been a cheap trick strictly for the audience's sake, with no in-universe reason.
I first saw this movie when I was 12. 8 years ago in 2016. Now I'm 20 years old, the movie has been really formative for who I am today. For that I really need to thank you.
I can't believe I just now found this here on youtube. I watched this when I was a little kid, and truly, I feel like this film was a break into the person I am today... someone that just *has* to know and understand everything. I always thought that it was a fever dream, and could never fully remember what the film was even about. All that I could remember were the bizarre CG graphics and exestential themes, and probably had something to do with math, so I could never even find the name of the novel it was based on. But, here it is in all of its glory! Watching through this now as a young adult was incredible. It's truly satisfying... I finally have closure as to who that weird sphere guy that was always burned into the back of my brain is (I found A. Sphere to be visually entrancing as a child... truly a core memory) and I can even come to understand the art for all its merits. I would like to say that I love the visual style so so much... I have so much I could say about how well executed the visuals are aesthetically and thematically but I don't really want to write a novel in here right now LOL. I'm definetly going to make all of my friends watch this with me when I get the chance. Thank you Ladd for opening my eyes to the world of sciences and making this available for all to see easily.
"The secret philosophy is to die." Or maybe it is more accurate to say the secret philosophy is to prepare to die. There is more to the world out here brother. The void doesn't seem real even though they insist it is and imagination seems more real than anything even though they insist it is the least real thing possible. Think for yourself, make your own conclusions, challenge your own beliefs periodically searching for false beliefs we have overlooked. The dragon is hidden, but it is still a dragon, and there is one of those nasty serpents in all of us. For good and for ill. Break it like you would break a horse, so it will no longer resist you, and then develop a relationship with it like we do with our beloved pupper frens. Dragon is either not understood or misunderstood, not a force to fear or subjugate.
Did I ghostwrite this or something? In all seriousness, I agree. This was impossibly important in shaping me into who I am, and I'm just now realizing that.
@Moe_Posting_Chad I love this comment so much. I'm happy to say that my dragon is my best friend and that I wouldn't have it any other way. To live is to learn, to write and to love your dragon, because one day death will take that privellege of thought away
Popular synopses of "Flatland" usually just talk about A Square's encounter with the Sphere because they're using it for mathematical or scientific exposition. This is the first time I've seen someone make a serious crack at adapting the first half of the book, which is a kind of brutal satire of 19th-century society.
@@kurtreber9813the second half IS the parts between A.Sphere and A.Square, the first half is what this movie includes - showing flstland society, people, how they live.
The fact a lot of it is actually not that bad coming from a 19th century person. Reconfiguration sounds like a metaphor for the schooling system at the time.
I still love the theory that Bill Cypher might of been a Low/High tier Citizen that was Broken mentality Because He felt to constricted with the rules of the world…So he burned it to the ground and (Somehow) broke free from his dimension and became the Unhinge Triangle we all know and love😂 Edit: Guys, I made this comment because it was a fun theory I just learned awhile ago, Thought it would be fun to relate to this video, Chill in the comments, Pls and thank you
Glad to see another after The Book of Bill (or just in general). The premise of Bill's denial in the details of the destruction of his world us fascinating. Especially how his parents tried to stop him from having those visions.
I remember watching this as a child, I had an obsession with dimensions.. this movie was my first glimpse into how messed up life can be. This movie has so many messed up concepts woven together into something that’s both beautiful and hopeless. It has themes of classism, sexism, and racism strewn through it. It becomes more and more messed up the more you think about it.. There’s genocides, infanticides, extremist religious practices, abuse, suicide, and everything.. just feels so wrong. But it’s horrific in a way that makes sense. This story is messed up, but it NEEDS to be messed up to make the revelation that A Square exists in a universe with possibly infinite dimensions. His entire world has been shattered.
Dude, dimensions are so cool, definitely get back into that if you haven't already. On the subject, you should also check out numerical bases! Those being alrernatives to base 10, or decimal, like binary (base 2), hexadecimal (base 16), ternary (base 3), negadecimal (base -10), unary (base 1), base -1, base square-root-of-two, base i-1 (that's "i" as in the imaginary unit), base 2i (the quarter-imaginary base), base phi (the golden ratio), base 1.5, base 64, and many many more! (if you couldn't already tell, I'm kinda obsessed with numerical bases 😅)
I read this book while studying mathematics. I enjoyed how the book wasn't just an exploration of 2D life but also a criticism of eugenics, which at the time (1884) was a popular viewpoint (the term was coined the year before!). Shapes breed in order to have offspring of a higher side count or 'class', which ties into Victorian beliefs about social class. You also have how women are presented, the effect of dogma on the proliferation of new ideas, etc. I shouldn't have to explain that eugenics is bad, it's actually one of the core philosophies of Nazism (along with racism).
@@FilmLadd Couldn't disagree more. The flatlanders take it for granted that irregularity is bad while killing children with reshaping. You must always re-assess your ideas to judge their value, otherwise you can find yourself mindlessly trapped by harmful ideas. I'm obviously not saying that eugenics is good. I'm saying that the statement that eugenics is bad requires justification just like any other.
@@wj11jam78 except when words have established definitions, you can find those 'justifications' within the definitions of the words themselves and the context they arise in. eugenics, by definition, is selectively restricting human reproduction in order to breed out 'unwanted' traits. historically, which is the context that the word eugenics was founded in, these traits are things like skin color, homosexuality, disabilities, and even poor economic status-- All of which are considered 'undesirable/degenerate' traits in the context of eugenics. i dont think i need to explain why this is nonsensical thinking that is just fascism at its core, and used to justify the extermination and marginalization of minority groups. tldr; you cant debatelord eugenics mmkay?
@@gothoverheaven6239mathematics proves god limited the number of dimensions to 2 kinda argument. You're relying on concepts as accepted by modern society. Not that I think eugenics is good either, just that you have to rely on more than something as simplistic as "inalienable human rights" on their own.
I took a break from this at the dream at 0:30 and took a nap myself. I've watched just 2 min and now im making excuses like, i want to eat dinner first. I just dont want this to end. This has absolutely been my happiest on TH-cam since its creation.
in 2nd or 3rd grade, i remember my class heading down to the library to watch this movie. seeing the 2d guy talk to the 3d guy caused me to think differently about how i understand the world around me. this genuinely changed my perspective on the universe in a way i can’t quite describe. thank you man. i’m so glad i found this. update: who let a second grader watch this? it’s so much darker than i remember. it’s amazing but like holy crap
It's been my experience that kids don't notice the darkness in something like, for instance, the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or The Wizard of Oz, so I can see kids not getting the darker elements of Flatland. But to be clear, I did not think of or make Flatland as a film for children.
Ditto. I had to read the book for 10th grade geometry in 1986. Others picked different books. I think this book helped open my eyes and thinking, as it did for you.
This movie felt like a fever dream watching this in my 8th grade math class just to understand 2d and 3d shapes but im glad to be reminded that this exists after so long
This movie is absolutely fascinating to me. It's a very strange mish-mash of concepts, but I think that because of that the movie's presentation id incredibly unique and creative. It breaks a lot of these concepts and creatures to their most basic form so just about anyone can understand them, while still implementing this strangeness into its world. I can easily picture plenty of movies about someone being taken out of their world and shown just how much further reality goes, but this one in particular grabs my attention because of its story and presentation working together. The CG is strange. It's not the most amazing, I can picture how these things are animated more than I can picture how they're alive, but it's still used to present a surrealness that I think suits its world really well! I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can tell people had a fun time thinking of and working on the visuals for this movie, it really shines through. There's the story as well, which I liked, but because of that I feel like I don't actually have that much to say. I like A Sphere being such a careless, self-centered dirtbag in such a comical way. (I made a sped up gif of that scene where he's typing his report, that's how fun I find him.) I don't know what it is about Flatland exactly, but I think I like it so much because it's so unique. Yeah, there's another Flatland film, yeah there's a Flatland book, but I don't think anything else will ever come close to the unique surrealness of this film. There's never gonna be a Flatland-like for all I know. I don't care if this movie's not a masterpiece, but it's definitely special. It's special to me in no way another movie could be. I love that more than I could love any 10/10 film.
I remember in high school, some 50 odd years ago, reading Abbott's Flatland. I was fascinated by the analogies inherent in the different dimensions. Then a few years later in College, I wrote a short story about Quadraman. It was about a fourth dimensional creature who I denoted as God. Omniscient, Omnipresent, etc. Finding this movie on TH-cam brought back all those memories. Thank you for uploading this.
There seems to be some mathematical lodestones that are destined to be discovered over and over. Thank you for watching! Please like and subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks!
I just realized - the plants in Flatland. They run on the same principles as Spaceland leaves, yet they're also flat surfaces instead of sticks. The plants - they evolved to absorb light from what is effectively another world, from the sun above Messiah Inc. Fascinating.
Imagine God plucking you from your dimension and showing you another smaller dimension where you'd be considered a god, then taking you to their realm of gods, only for them to call you insane when you suggest there may be gods above them who do the exact same thing as them.
Time stamps for flashing lights and motion-sickness inducing spinning. 26:23 - 26:31 has his brain flashing and shaking as the camera zooms in on his neurons with dial-up noises playing until 27:20 - 32:10 a white light strobes across the screen starting at 15 seconds apart, then strobing when the king of Lineland demands A. Square prove what he's saying. All the while the people of Lineland light up whenever they speak. This scene ends with A. Square being peirced through the eye by the King of Lineland, and spinning rapidly until he wakes up in bed with his kids yelling. 38:10:16 has A. Square zipping through the marketplace so the talls go by in a blurry flash at the top and bottom of the screen. 46:09 - 46:25 The camera starts rapidly spinning to follow President Circle as he spins. 50:37 - 50:50 the camera spins and A. Square flashes white as A. Sphere pokes in repeatedly in the stomach from the 3rd Dimension. A Square is screaming during this. 51:19 - 51:52 The camera spins and flashes rapdily as A. Square is lifted out of Flatland. 58:49 - 58:52: The camera spins along with A Sphere a he leave Flatland again 59:16 - 59:20 The camera spins again 1:02:26 - 1:38:07 The camera spins as they come in to land at Messiah Incorporated 1:03:50 - 1:04:25 the camera spins again 1:04:33 - 1:11:45 The lights flicker irregularly throughout and flash as the desk shakes while A. Sphere types. The room also spins after 1:06-something. 1:06:10 - 1:06:13 light strobe as A Sphere takes flash photos of A Square 1:11:55 - 1:13:28 The camera spins as other characters enter enter the room, then as they descend in the elevator. Lights then flash as they fly and enter the room with flash photography. 1:13:28 - 1:19:15 Constant flahing light from endless flash photogragy at all time, plus the camera pinning. A. Square becomes incresingly more sicker from the force of gravity and falls over. 1:19:22 - 1:19:45 We zoom in on A. Square's spinning and glitching eye as the background swirls and spins. 1:20:40 - 1:21:46 Red lights flash as ships fire on eachother in the sky with lazers. 1:21:46 The screen flashes white as a bomb is dropped, and we see A Sphere's insides against the white background. 1:22:28 - 1:25:44 More flashing red and green lights as ships fire on eachother, then an explosion, and the screen begins to shake violently with more lights flashing. We see A Sphere's car, with a message highlighted on the screen, "A Sphere is dead! Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. No acceptance. Revenge" 1:25:44 - 1:27:08 A Square glitches as he falls back to Flatland, then falls through and into streams of white mathmatical equations falling past. The music gets louder than is necessary. 1:31:49 - 1:32:07 One of A Sphere's eyes pops out and the camera starts to spin. 1:34:24 - 1:34:47 The camera spazzes out and swirls around absurdly fast as A Square's wife roars to knock out all the guards. 1:35:38 - 1:36:01 The screen shakes as a smaller bomb goes off, then triangles in flashing colors stream past.
So basically every single moment I also think 3D world was made disconcerting on purpose to show A Square's perspectives (all the reflections and lights which didn't exist on his world)
As I understood it, in the end, when the war between the Republic and the Northern Country began, Space had already begun to destroy the flat world, as the corpses of soldiers began to disappear and in the end the inhabitants of Space pulled A square up. Not to the north, but up!
The way I see it the 4d beings contacted A Square at the end. The mysterious glow points, the trapezoid that came back to life, the guy that looked like A Square passing him at the end, I think it's all cuz of the 4th dimension being the time dimension.
@@colelevel2654 I'd agree with you, except this movie is about spacial dimensions. Time, while commonly called "the fourth dimension" isn't a 4th spacial diminution. Our reality has three spacial dimensions and one temporal dimension.
@@colelevel2654Time and Space are seperate dimensions courtesy of Einsteins Special Relativity. While time can be attributed as "the fourth dimension" its more accurate to seperate it into it being the firdt temporal dimension - it is clearer that way. On that note, the entire point of Flatland is specitically about Spatial dimensions, I don't think temporal dimensions were even known when the original novel was released back in 1880. Thus A.Square is 100% referring to the spatial version, which the Spacelanders simply cannot observe just like we cannot. And as a side note, if someone says the fifth dimension is "parallel universes", they have no fucking clue what dimensions even are, do not listen to them.
A. Sphere is so expressive despite only having eyes and a pac-man mouth! Also great is seeing more Spacelanders than just the sphere. Just wish there was less gore and spinning cameras.
It's been a while since I made the film, but as I am generally an "anti-spinner" as well, my reasoning for it in Spaceland was to shadow the bewilderment of A-Square. At the time I felt that Spaceland had to have a complete visual break from Flatland. It may or may not have worked, depending on your point of view.
I know I already commented, but I would absolutely ADORE seeing A Square playing that 4d minigolf game. I don't care if he doesn’t have arms, he would be so curious and confused.
god, i absolutely ADORE the idea of actually living in the 2nd dimension. all this talk of the dimension itself but nothing about how life would be like living in it. i love this so much; both the concept and the movie itself.
@@hatlessgojira yeah, its awesome. for all we know this could be a documentary. like, were living our lives in the third dimension, and a 4th dimension creature may ponder what itd be like to only live with three dimensions. same thing, just as we dont know whats really happening, they dont either; but it still could be real
If you like this, then get this book: The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World. It is about a fully functional society, biology, chemistry, technology in a 2-D world. How the body/organs work (zippered surfaces), technology (batteries work BUT no motors as magnetism requires 3-D), planetary orbits are flat out (no pun intended) weird. Music, a method to create books - a gem.
Such a wonderful piece!! I really love the scene where the x-axis attacked and bombed the messiah inc. , A sphere was so calm facing the end of the country and his death……love his last words. Disappointment at people’s foolishness and cowardice towards the x-axis, he just sat down and waiting, alone in the evacuated messiah building, to witness ‘another little war’. I would say that A sphere is my favorite character, though I felt a bit uncanny about A sphere totally denied A square’s idea about the possible existence of higher dimensions. The storyline and world building is definitely brilliant and very impressive, the old fashioned 90s CGI animation fits unexpectedly well with the atmosphere and it's also cool and beautiful. It is also really amazing that the whole animation was made by only one person. This indie film is surely a remarkable piece in history.
It does make sense though the reason A sphere denied it was because he never saw or thought about it or he said it to not be in trouble what if 4d beings enter spaceland i do know one thing A sphere or the council knows something we do not
@@Gob998 I was thinking an advanced society as the spaceland is would have mathematicians or scientists proposing that probability and might have already become a popular culture thing as we’ve seen in our world. Lots of educational videos and sci-fi stuff talking about higher dimensions. As the CEO of the Messiah Inc which is responsible for the flatland project, A sphere’s denial kinda confused me. Though these are my thoughts it doesn’t do any harm to the story and character development.
@@ecdetrick4560 The real meat and potatoes of that scene is that A Sphere actually realizes that A Square spoke the truth about the existence of a fourth dimension. In fact, it *broke* A Sphere. That's why he simply chose to sit there, as the bombs went off, declaring that "ignorance is bliss". He spent so long thinking himself the pinnacle of creation *and* the pinnacle of his people that it made him lethargic until he simply gave up.
Maybe in Spaceland, culture around the fourth dimension is similar to Flatland’s treatment of the concept of a third dimension. 4D being a concept known only to a few elite, and otherwise considered heresy, with anyone preaching of its existence being locked up or killed.
1:04:30 *beautiful, otherworldly music playing* Stay there. I have to write my after action report *Violently begins slamming his tentacles on the keyboard*
TH-cam kept recommending me this and I didn't understand why. Now I learned no to question the algorithm any longer. I'm 24 minutes in, there's carnage and cruelty beyond belief and yet I can't look away.
While at first a bit jarring I was quickly immersed and captured by this world. The world building of how their society worked was amazing and I just couldn’t stop watching till the end. Glad I found this diamond
but now the question I have. How can bill see the stars if he must have a 3 dimensional eye then? and that means his father and mother must have created a 3D object in a 2D plane which is basically impossible unless a 3D being inserted it varies a some sort of surgery between a infinitely thin object and if, for WHY?! get what I mean?
@Xmaobu No, we saw A squares perspective. They can see 3D as well, they just need to be lifted out. It is possible that bill gained enough power to edit his being to "optimise" his eye to look into the 3rd dimension. When A sphere was trying to explain sight to A square, he said having an eye inside himself. If we look at Bill, he has exactly that. An eye in the middle of his body.
A Sphere said something about how A Square would need an eye on his insides. Bill has an eye on the inside. If Bill were normal like the other flatlanders he'd probably look like this: /\ o \ /____\ But instead he looks like this /\ /👁\ /____\ So maybe he was constantly looking upward?
What a great movie, I remember stumbling onto this after doing some bong hits with my buddy one weekend, and words can't describe what it made me feel at the time. Now I come back to it every so often, with a more sober disposition, and still love every minute of it.
Oh man, this movie is always a wild ride and I want to commend you on such amazing work. Gosh, there are so many spatial concepts, I can hardly wrap my brain around them all. But the glowpoints always stood out the most to me and it always felt like A. Square referring to stars as glowpoints felt like subtext. At first I considered that maybe they were 0D worlds that could exist in the planes of higher dimensions, kinda like how Flatland existed in Spaceland. But looking at it further, it seemed like Flatland existing in Spaceland wasn't a natural occurrence, or intentional by the people of Spaceland. Especially with the signs under Flatland saying it was dangerous and unexplored, and considering the Spacelanders' revulsion to Flatland being in their world, this wasn't done by either dimension on purpose. It could be a contextual device by some 4D beings to teach Spacelanders about the difference between their dimensions, utilizing lesser dimensions that the Spacelanders could comprehend. And, both the ending and the scene where the rectangle woman "eats" herself show the same point of light. Which brings me back to the glowpoints; I hypothesize that maybe the glowpoints are actually 4D beings. The glowpoint is just a part of their body they are extending into the lower dimensional worlds, maybe a vertex I don't know. The whole time we see Flatland scenes, we view it from a Spacelander's perspective looking into it, meaning that the glowpoints of a higher dimension wouldn't be comprehensible to our 3 dimensional vision as anything other than what the 4D beings would want us to see. A Sphere "breaking" A Square's glowpoint could've just been the result of the 4D entity moving, or being moved, slightly and showing a different lower dimensional slice of that 4D being's body. To tie this all together, A Square calling the stars glowpoints may hint at this being the case again, with 4D beings having physical contact with the lower dimensional Spaceland, with their slices appearing as glowing points again. I have no doubt regular stars exist in Spaceland's universe and most of them are just that, but some may be 4D beings keeping a close eye on Spaceland. And even though they appear to be at great height or distance to us, to a 4D being, them making contact with up in the sky or right on the ground may be such a short distance to them that it doesn't matter to them. Once again, similar to how A Sphere could go from A square's house to the Senate building in such a short distance and short amount of time in the third dimension. Ugh, my brain hurts.
I love these theories. I also noticed A Line eating herself, or "escaping Flatland". Maybe the glow point going out shows its disapproval or that it's no longer needed? Either way, it recognizes that A Sphere's about to do his thing and gets out of the way
@@indisputable3 The thought of a 4D being being disappointed in a lost opportunity does make sense. If they wanted to inform Spacelanders about the fourth dimension, logic dictates they could easily try to use Flatlanders to cozy Spacelanders up to that logical conclusion, instead of 4D making direct contact with 3D. Heck, we see that 3D making contact with 2D has pretty much been a failed effort for three thousand years, and the same rings true for the 3D "madmen" that see slices of supposed 4D beings, so this shortcut of making the concept graspable, whilst not flooding a lower dimensional being with information it can't truly comprehend would be simpler. We have that in real life, where even if we can't actually imagine a 4D shape, or true slice of one (hard to tell if hyper shapes are truly accurate or not), we can conclude a fourth dimension could exist with the logic of lower dimensions having consecutively higher dimensions above them.
I love how this movie conceptualizes the whole flatlander idea, but I just had to laugh at the editing. I understand it was for kids, but playing jaunty music after showing dudes getting killed repeatedly throughout was pretty jarring in a macabre dark humor way. Show a child who died of an unnecessary medial procedure getting tossed into an incinerator? No worries, it's 🎶Fiesta time🎶! Show a bunch of solders being ripped apart? Don't think about it, it's 🎶fiesta time🎶! Show protestors being brutally gunned down? Its no big deal, it's 🎶fiesta time🎶!
Well yes, it was intended to be contrapuntal. The Spaceland sequence especially, which echoes A Sphere's giddy sociopathy as he plows through Spaceland causing mayhem and destruction in his wake.
It was meant to contrast, like dramatic irony. The circle president was just totally fine with throwing his kid in the fire and a cheerful march plays as he walks away. Also wtf about this seems like a kids movie lol
![Flatland - By Edwin A Abbott [full audiobook] read by James Langton](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pivnpMohki0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Flatland - By Edwin A Abbott [full audiobook] read by James Langton](/img/tr.png)
I don't know why but cries of terror proclaiming "It's a woman" really get me
same here 😂
Me when I find out a character I thought was a guy for a really long time is actually a girl
Relatable
@@unpronouncable2442 when your girl is literally a force of nature fr fr
@@30-50FeralHogssamus
This is, quite possibly, the best lovecraftian horror film ever created. People think it's about tentacles and fishmen (and I guess for Lovecraft himself it was about racism, but that's beside the point here,) but the true horror of a lovecraftian monster is being something that we cannot understand, and the horror of being made *to* understand that which we cannot.
A Square is exposed to and forced to comprehend a world for which he has no words, a world that he, as an organism, is not equipped to interact with or understand, he can only stand in awe of the terrible beauty before him. And then he is sent back, and the words he gained slip from his mind because he could barely process, much less understand, what he saw. In trying to explain, he sounds like a raving madman even though his ramblings make sense to *us* as three dimensional beings.
Don't let the wacky music and goofy characters fool you. A Square went through the equivalent of getting picked up by Cthulhu and given a tour of R'lyeh.
It is sort of present in Lovecraft's work. It is mentioned a few times that the Old Ones are, by our definition, incredibly technologically advanced to the point that there's no distinction between any of the scientific fields or their own biology. This can be seen in some of the lesser eldritch beings, like the Elder Things, which are not quite as advanced enough that we don't recognize what they have as technology (for one thing, the Shoggoths are basically industrial robots they created).
This leads to the very interesting idea that the Old Ones aren't necessarily evil (well, except for Nyarlathotep, but he's a dick even by the morals of the other Old Ones) they just operate on such a different scale than humanity that everything they do ends up destructive to us in one way. By just waking up and walking around Cthulhu causes untold devastation, which to him is basically just taking a stroll around his yard. To him, we're just random insects wandering about that he pays no mind to (and which Nyarlathotep burns with a magnifying glass for fun).
Which makes the ending of the Call of Cthulhu really funny to me, because imagine you just woke up, open your front door, and a beetle just smacks right into the side of your head and gives you a little cut. I would probably decide to just go back to bed too.
My favorite film representation of Lovecraftian horror is the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I won't spoil it for you, it's REALLY good.
@@Canyon_Lark I think what they meant is that it gets to the heart of what gives Lovecraftian horror it's identity, which most movies really struggle with.
Flatland predates Lovecraft as a concept. But yes people have made that connection before.
In what way are lovecraft's works *about* racism?
I love the detail of how A Square gets put back into Flatland backwards, and can use that to prove the third dimension exists. Notice how at the start he and B Square faced the same direction and had to have one upside down if they faced eachother. And when A Square comes back he’s now able to look his brother in the eye. A rotation like that is completely impossible in only 2D
i noticed that!
An incredibly well thought out worldbuilding jeezus...
Now im tripping out imagining how the same thing would *somehow* be able to translate in the 4th dimension, IE rotating on the 4th axis would alow a person to return to 3d physically flipped like he does in his world.
Now that im thinking about it vsauce did a short on that didnt he?
@@RavenTheSergal idk if Vsauce did a vid on it, but ur on the cusp of what scientists end up calling the "simulation universe" theory. from MY understanding, depending on ur school of thought, there's either 9 or 11 dimensions, with an infinite number of fractal dimensions, as about, so below, etc etc. have fun! dont get lost tho! it TRULY is a rabbithole and i've known many a friend to get lost in the warrens of that rabbithole... never to really come out/come back the same...
@@RavenTheSergalyou'd look like your mirror self! If you had a birthmark on your left arm, after flipping you it'd be on your right hand.
"Your brother is expendable"
*queue the most whimsical music known to man*
XD
This movie is so goofy 🤭
"Oh dearie me!" type music
1:01:05 timestamp for anyone wondering
*Cue
You know, watching this film always makes me realize how much I take 3D space for granted.
Finding gratitude for a 3d existence is next level self glazing 10/10
@@lowercasefriend5622and what the glazing is valid
I love moving around freely I used to take it for granted but now I’ve seen a 2D beings prespevtive I am grateful
Now imagine a 4D being watching a 3D vid and realising how grateful they are
I would legit pay serious money to watch a rebooted Flatland triology with modern IMAX quality graphics.
I accept paypal and cashapp.
@@FilmLadd Do you accept (possibly) human kidneys??
@@rowbeans-l1n Well... are they cooked?
@@FilmLadd Do you want them to be...?
Lmao funniest interaction in the comment section fr
Love the effort to actualy design a door for 2d space
Father was an architect, grew up at a drafting table
Pocket door!
Now I wonder how 2D creatures built such doors
@@loupax Probably a lot like we do 😀
@@loupaxyeah, do they have 2d tools used to sculp 2d rocks into the shape of doors and rocks?
Imagine getting dragged to heaven by the closest thing to God you've ever seen in your life, only for both you and him to get put on trial and then witnessing the beginning of a massive war you can hardly make sense of. A Square's got it pretty rough!
I love how once he starts thinking he never stops. The closest thing to a God he's seen tells him a fourth dimension doesn't exist but his new understanding of logic says that there must be more. Sphere accidentally taught him way more than what he himself thought.
@@Dalton_Boardman2000 Are we really any different? Something simply does not add up. Our explanation of our world and our mythology must be insufficient... Or at least the predominate narratives. Something must be that we have overlooked.
Imagine getting pulled into a jury trial as a witness to Nylarthotep of many faces and fucking Azathoth.
There’s so many things about this stuff that is absolutely amazing
Explaines DarkMatter much better and more logical than our current dark nothing.
🚀🏴☠️🎸
Well, supossedly, Enoch was plucked off earth, shown around heaven by fallen angels wanting back into heaven and asked to represent them and bargain for them (hired as their lawyer?) and sent back to earth after. So....
(Not an expert on the books of enoch but i think it was something like that. )
One of the most cruel thing a fourth dimensional being could do to a human is flip them around, effectively mirroring us. All the proteins in our bodies would be mirrored as well, so food would probbably taste entirely diffrent (along with a lot of more detrimental side effects). Thats of course assuming the process of rotating us doesn't make all our organs fly out our new fourth dimensional sides.
Mirrored proteins wouldn't work with the ones in our biosphere. We would die.-
Too many chiral proteins.
Homochirality explained
That's basically what happened to A Square
Kurt Vonnegut tried to explore what a 4D (the fourth dimension being time) would appear like to us and how it might communicate.
This mf just dropped the most crazy line and they played silly xylophone music like “your brother is expendable.” *silliness engaged*
Sometimes, when confronted with horror, the most healthy reaction is to laugh
RIGHT??? i just started laughing 😭😭
@@FilmLadd”Dark humor is the way some people cope with tragedy”
@@imenemostefai8979 Yup
@@FilmLadd this quote genuinely goes hard for no reason
The fact that women are actually an impossibly overpowered weapon is so hilarious
true to reality
--and yet considered to be a lower dimensional thing. They are essentially calling them 1D (lines), despite being 2D like everyone else (2D)
@@Taricus Flatland was written in the 19th century partly as a criticism of Victorian values. The fact that women are lower status (and lower dimensional) than everybody else was originally meant to be satire.
@@thorjelly I know. It has a lot of satire in it. I love that book, especially because I was a math major in undergrad LOL! I tell people about it, but they just don't get it half the time. They tune out as soon as it sounds like geometry or graph theory LOL!
Why aren't the women in space land thin rectangular prisms!?!?
i originally watched this because of people saying how similar it was to the new Bill Cipher lore, but i actually have never been able to sit through a movie at full attention like this before. I genuinley thought I'd watch this, make a stupid joke about "wow guys bill cipher!!!!" and forget about it, but this has been the best movie ive probably ever watched before
"i want to show them the stars" ahh
"Oh nooooo!!1!!!!!!!11! My son died!!!1!!1!
*Anyways, attend to your configuration*-"
The flatlanders don't get very attached to each other...
@@KaapoKallio but do to higher dimensional "gods" though
@@СветланаКузьменко-з4и perhaps
their are two perspectives to the situation.
in the negative view. Only politicians who are psychopaths/sociopaths rise to the top because they are more willing to plot against there fellowman and thus can more easily rise than an emphatic person
In the positive view. leaders of a nation have a lot of burden on their shoulders and thus must be in control of their emotions at all times. He must as rationally as possible in his view and understanding to make the right decision
@@groomschild1617 A third perspective: Child mortality was an accepted and understood Fact of Life prior to the medical advances of recent centuries. When this was written, there was still a large percentage of children that passed away even in the most developed world. Yes, it was sad, but frankly, it was almost expected.
He had the proof of what he'd seen, but nobody including himself noticed: he's facing right when he comes back from Shapeland
Ohhh thats clever
You would think his friends and family members would have noticed? To us as 3D beings the change isn’t super noticeable, but to 2D beings it would be very obvious since they have asymmetrical “faces” (the side with the eye and mouth). If you’re a flatlander looking at A square’s “face”, his eye initially is to the left of his mouth, but it changes to the other side after he gets flipped in the higher dimension.
@@Sashazur The problem with this is that they can barely see anything, and spend their early years relying upon touch.
@@FilmLadd Then how do they recognize each other? Their sight is supposed to be all blurry, but they never seem to confuse two squares for each other.
@@marzipancutter8144 They have sight recognition lessons to learn. Adults are better at it than the younglings.
One of the best case studies of world building ever. Everything, from the politics to the way the houses are built, is indicative of how a world like this would work.
Thank you.
@@FilmLadd I would really love a commentary-track by you explaining these details and the stories behind them! :>
@@lillsyrra Maybe I'll do that one day, thanks!
“B, what are you doing? B, what would our dad say??”
-“OUR DAD WAS A *TRIANGLE* .”
Peak.
Triangles do have peaks
I didn't get that. What does it mean or what makes it funny?
@@dowesschule triangles have less sides, thus they are lower class, and considered dumber by beings of more sides iirc
@@dowesschule each generation gains an angle triangles are lower class citizens while squares and Pentagons are seen as gentleman the more angles the higher the class
@@PALACIO254 oh wait so women are lines, and if you add a line to a square you get a pentagon so thats why A squares children are pentagon?
"Politics? I HATE politics!"
no seconds later-
"War is an extension of politics."
Love this film
and it was War that killed the Sphere that hated politics.
«just as MURDER is an extension of *business*»
@@IntikusCEO of Messiah Inc. I wonder if king circle and a sphere are more similar.
"I don't want to be a great leader just a good person" just after comiting g3nocide is wild
God, watching this movie suddenly blow up and the comments section fill with praise is so amazing to see. I’ve always thought of this film as an underrated masterpeice.
Thank you. It received some praise back in 2007 but it was a different time from a social media standpoint.
Here from the zip
here bc of gravity falls
This is probably the best representation of a 4d world. The idea of getting us invested in a 2d world, making us fell like a part of it, only to shatter that perspective along with the characters, is genius. Not to mention the mirroring of the 3d world having all the problems of the 2d, and the weird tone makes this so, so good. I need to watch this high.
This being an adaptation of an 1884 book makes so much more sense, its old sci fi weirdness, no wonder.
Just finished this while I was high and wow the only way to explain what I felt was… 🤯
not sure you do want to watch while high. it didn't make any sense to me while high right now, why were their brains in spinning gears? And what would you even call a 4D world?
@@Dominodude55 artistic liberty and 4-space
This was the firet thing i watched while being high for the first time lmfao
this and Carl Sagens explaining 4th dimension
'Sees the massive baby furnace'
Yeah, this explains a lot about Bill...
I don't understand this very much, can you explain?
@@Flowerbombs-135 Bill Cipher's home dimension is based off of the original story of Flatland.
While it isn't implied Bill's dimension and the one in this film are the same dimensions, it's still kind of horrifying to think about.
I think I saw a comment somewhere that said "Do you think Bill was reshaped considering how round he is baby mode" or something along those lines.
@@nailymoment1786 Oh, thanks for explaining
That ending man. Hes been through so much, most of which he cant comprehend. Being sucked out of his dimension again, hes just broken and confused. He just pleads with whatevers out there. "Please, i need to meet my wife and kids in the north."
In the book, A Square ends up in jail, going crazy, but here, the glowing point he encounters is a 4th-dimensional being. In other words, it's a happy ending because it symbolizes his transcendence to the fourth dimension, where he achieves more than what the three-dimensional sphere (forgot his name) attempted by gaining a higher understanding of reality.
That's not the best explanation, but hopefully, it conveys the general idea. I'm not sure what other people think, but I like this ending better. The original was much more bleak. Cheers.
@Nileppez the original does see m more sad, but at least its definitive, but here, the open-endedness and ambiguity of it is more bleak for me. Although he MAY transcend to a 4th dimension, its not for sure, he could be so broken that he just can't go on.
@@Nileppez The sphere's name was sphere.
Another detail I quite like, it looks like Flatlanders don't have nervous systems, and instead use radio waves to communicate between their brain and body. The cog around their brain looks like the functional mechanism in the radios, after all, and senator chromatiste was able to continue fleeing after having his brain severed. It also makes sense due to the constructions of 2 dimensional space, you can't route a nerve around an organ, but radio waves can pass through both organs and each other.
Oh yeah I was curious about the fact that Chromatiste was able to continue living despite the brain being severed. This makes sense.
Though I wonder if the outer walls of their flesh keep the radio waves contained so there's no cross-talk.
@@Yipper64 I doubt it, considering chromatiste didn't seem encumbered in any way while fleeing. they might use something vaguely analogous to networking protocols, like having their DNA imprinted into the wavelengths. A wifi router has a latency of under 100 milliseconds, sometimes as low as 5 or 6. Considering that nerves have a delay of 30-60 milliseconds, that does mean networked radio waves would be an acceptable substitute for nerves.
Radio waves propagate in 3D space. Can that work in Flatland?
@@kurtreber9813 since flatland is technically *in* space land then yeah. Could also be 2D radio waves.
@@kurtreber9813 Yes, in fact, it would be a pretty good method to figure out the third dimension exists, as they would notice that somehow the energy of the radio waves decreases faster than it should (in a 2D space, the intensity should decrease linearly with distance, while in 3D space, it decreases with the square of the distance) So by noticing that Radio energy is somehow "leaking" out of their plane, they could deduce the existence of an extra dimension where the radio waves dissipate.
In fact this very method was/is actually used in real life by physicists with gravitational waves to probe the universe for extra spatial dimensions, that are predicted by some exotic models.
Here is a quote from an article from 2018 in the CERNCOURIER "Gravitational hunt for extra dimensions"
"Some modifications of general relativity, such as the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) model, involve the addition of extra dimensions accessible to gravity. If such extra dimensions are large, and thus not rolled up to a microscopic size as predicted by some beyond-Standard Model theories, part of the gravitational field would “leak” into the extra dimensions. Therefore, GWs arriving at detectors such as those of the LIGO and VIRGO observatories would be weaker than expected."
The most profound bit in the story is when A square talks about the possibility of other dimensions and realities and A sphere shrugs it off and despite the enormous irony, he says those people in his 3-D world who say what A Square said are being illogical and implies they are mentally ill.
Think about that...
Sphere must be subconsciously thinking "Shit, I accidentally taught this dude stuff I can't even comprehend."
Works the same way with fiction. Everyone thinks their own paradigm is the ultimate. But taking into account the infinitude of imaginary worlds out there, the likelihood that we're a dream approaches certainty.
That's a cool point in the original 1880's story
This would only be true if dreams contained fully actualized realities and weren't just dreams. But yes, this is the basic logic behind belief in the simulation hypothesis@@tahunuva4254
He said ignorance is bliss and I couldn’t agree more. Something we just weren’t meant to know
There are two groups of people here. The people who knew about this before gravity falls fans realized it was referenced in gravity falls and the gravity falls fans
lol im the gravity falls fan
I forget the video, but somewhere on TH-cam exists a video of a guy talking about Mr. Game and Watch from smash brother to contextualize living in 2d. He brought this movie up in the video and that's how I found it.
Really wish I remember the video it was a banger
gravity fan that foud this bc of billsifer and im so glad this was hold and the touch of religion with the shitty Quality I love it
I've never watched gravity falls (I've heard of it obvs), where is it referenced in the show?
@@Marceline_Raynespretty sure it’s from the book of bill
I like how no flatlander notice that the A-square that has been transported back from 3rd dimension is flipped (as in mirrored like rotated against the 3rd dimension axis)
True. I noticed as well, since his bed was wrong
The easiest way to test a higher dimension being is ask them to flip you but have them flip you back afterwards or you will starve to death.
@@815TypeSirius could a 4D creature even touch us?
There would probably 2 options if you tae 2D creatures as an example:
1. A 2D creature has no depth and therefore nothing a 3D creature could touch.
2. A 2D creature would be extreme fragile in 3D like a realy realy thin sheet of glass. By a 3D creature touching the 2D creature, the 2D creature would probably break into the third dimension.
I would imagin something similar would happen if a 4D creature tries to touch a 3D creature.
@@zitro22 i absolutely mute all the idiots who make comments at me.
@@815TypeSiriuswhat?
Oh, i realized that at 1:21:47 that A. Square does in fact get to see Sphere's insides, but not the way either of them hoped. My man got DETONATED.
I thought it might have been from the X-rays that the nuke produced
this part blew my mind honestly
@@xooplordit also blew A Sphere's mind...
he said he couldn't see anything a bit before cuz of him deteriorating from being in 3 dimensions for so long, and even then he got sent down the elevator before the detonation, so idk about that.
17:43
“A 4th dimension?! That’s outrageous!” Yet here you trying to explain your 3rd dimension to a Flatlannder😂
I like the detail about their brains.
Triangles have small brains (they are low-tier citizens, made to only follow orders); the general Triangle has a bigger brain, but it is visibly deteriorated (maybe because of his age and all the things that have screwed his mind along the years); circle senators have bigger brain cavities, but their brains themselves are small (sheep politicians, literally air-heads); president Circle has a slightly bigger brain, but the gear spinning around it is thin (he is smart enough to lead the others, but he's still unwise and foolish); only certain characters, like A Square, have big brains and thick gears.
Holt shit that level of detail!
I didn't notice the gear thickness!!
The irregular senator had a big brain and a decently thick gear. Poor guy.
something interesting also is that President Circle has a noticeably bigger heart than the rest
detail
also
welcome to shape racism (also quite a detail to add)
Brain size doesn’t automatically determine how smart someone is.. it’s the wrinkles.
45 minutes in and i just realized i’ve been watching this thing upside down
More like northside south
bc it didn't matter
wait, how do you even do that?
@@IsaacBlack-nw1pp phone screen lock
@@IsaacBlack-nw1pp
Obviously, TuckyBlue is a 4D entity. 🙂🙃
Every time A Square had a moment of epiphany while in 3D, it made me feel how we probably would if we glimpsed into 4D. Fully seeing ourselves from before and after our deaths, fully understanding what it means to live and die and a better understanding of the 3D world you just cannot get without stepping up. This kind of sci fi is great for imagining what possibly could be there, if anything is there. We can totally sympathize with A Square
I described this movie to my friend as fascist circles and acid trips to other dimensions and they thought I dreamed it and made it up, thank you for posting this on TH-cam so I can prove them wrong and force them to watch a truly impactful movie and also the most bizarre movie I have ever seen
The first time we watched it was in geometry class and during lunch we all talked about how deep and meaningful it was but describing it to someone else is extremely hard
@@chaoticfrog9414 I'm glad you now can show everyone that you did not hallucinate this up and that, in fact, someone else did.
@@chaoticfrog9414 Now imagine trying to read the book this movie is based on and actually understanding anything lol
@@PowerHungryFoolthe book is more precise than the movie. It's quite a fun read
this is the only way to describe this XD at first I was like oh wow this could be cool for schools.... haha yeaa NOPPPEEE. a pure 2 hours of laughter and insanity, ain't nothing like it
Watched with my partner, her first time watching Flatland. Her impression, "I am amazed and disgusted and impressed and blown away. And everything. And just God everything."
The CGI still holds up and doesnt feel "bad"
Well, you can tell it was just one guy working on it
you know a movie called killer bean forever? The art stile feels equal in both
quite an accomplishment for one guy
@@wingedfeline5379 Thank you.
@@FilmLaddwas it made entirely by you? I really want to know the backstory!
In retrospective, the scene where A Square gets taken into 3D is magnificent, I compare it to Wall-E leaving into space and then the spaceship, a complete and drastic change of what we got accustomed to for a big portion of the movie. In a way, that's exactly what A Square felt, and we get to experience it as the audience.
Reminds me of a bill cypher animatic were he could see the 3rd diamention and they looked like stars
Actually that is completely canon to Gravity Falls.@@louzo5175
That’s why I love this film
Wall-E, one of the best movies from Disney
A square sounding like owen wilson is what pulled me in
Correction: Owen Wilson sounds like A Square
Also a sphere that sounds like matt berry
Woooowww
@@foxbutterfly-eden8715 correction: ka-choooooooooowww😅
WOW!
I read this book as a pdf on my iPod touch on an airplane when I was maybe 12 years old. Over a decade later I still remember it so well. Enough to remember that in the book, Square says that educated people know females are actually very thin parallelograms.
Speaking of which, A-square's wife is kind of a baddie. I think this interpretation of the peace cry is pretty hot. Same thing with that thing the imprisoned line did, morbid as it was.
I never thought I'd agree that a line was a baddie but here we are.
Down bad for a line segment
*sighs* Adds a square's wife to the hear me out cake
Hear me out on a very thin parallelogram is wild
Yes, Specifically segments of parallelograms.
My parents have a DVD copy of this signed by the director. They have never seen this film and have no idea where the DVD came from.
I sent it to them, probably
@@FilmLadd Could you please send one to me tooö pleaseee
@@Drenizko They're no longer for sale, sorry
@@FilmLadd thought so 😁 trying never hurts ;) maybe i will be able to find one somewhere online. Dope movie. Just found out about it 2 hours ago. Didn't expect to watch it until the end, love it and even get close with the characters. lol
A 4d being put it in your home from a space anth from your space, now you shall become a preist of the 4th dimension
Imagine your boss calling you "generic [your ethnicity] person"
thank you generic black guy Tyrone "It is Timone sir"
no not really since A square and B square had a triangle father
I love that when he came back to flatland he was flipped from presumably landing in it facing the opposite direction, but I was expecting them to comment about it saying he looks different or something.
I watched this once in a high school computing class and have been trying to find proof of its existence since.
Thank you.
Thank you for watching! Please consider liking and subscribing if you haven't already.
Of all the things that could have happened, seeing an HD upload of my favorite movie by the creator itself was not what I expected. This is basically my Christmas Present! The chatroom I moderate for Flatland Discussions is going a bit Hogwild at the moment, We're all ecstatic to see Flatland in this quality!! Thank you, Ladd.
You're welcome!
LADD this is cool indeed!!
IM A 4 D LAD AND YOU ARE A 3D LAD
Where is this chat room???? 🙏
Alphabet usually censors URLs posted here, @@JohnnyTwoFingers . @BootlegSeraphim, what can we search for to find it?
watched it 3am half asleep
had to rewatch it 3pm fully awake to make sure this video really exists
Top notch!!!
Saw this ten years ago in my 6th grade math class. The movie did nothing but confuse me back then and it still does today, I guess my monkey brain is destined for working a forklift job after all.
If you somehow come across this comment, I hope life is going good, Mr. Fugate.
May the winds be at your back, friends
We can help you friend : )
Lol don't feel bad. It's pretty confusing
the fact that you find it confusing means you're thinking about it in the right way.
It's an honest job. Without forklift drivers...well, we'd be carrying stuff by hand, one by one.
This sentiment of the modern age, that only the high thinkers are owed respect and a living wage, it sickens me.
Where I live, there's a saying: "The smartest city man doesn't eat if the peasant stops sh*tting."
...it sounds better in my language.
Not to mention that I seem to detect a huge correlation between overall misery in society and just how open that "economic scissors" is.
Even if they don't realize it, rich people would be a lot happier if the rest of us weren't stewing in uncertainty and inevitable dispossession. They are afraid to go out, lest they run into poor people, they resent everyone beneath them because of the sideways glances of "dude, you walking around in mink coat and I hafta decide if I eat butter or bread today", probably that's why most of them need a pill to sleep and a one to wake up.
It wasn't like that, back when a simple job could get even a "monkey brain"(your words) at least a modest house and a modest car and a modest wife and children.
The way we stand, if you don't have a house by the time you leave high school, it's a statistical impossibility that you are ever gonna have one, barring a lottery windfall or a dead relative's...bequeathings?(I'm almost certain I'm not using that word properly...)
Jus' sayin'. If rich people want to be happier, they probably should give us more stuff. Not gonna happen, but that's what would help.
Until a forklift driver like you, and even a grocery bagger can build a existence from their honest work, things are just going to continue to deteriorate.
...sorry, rant over. I just like to type and I feel rather passionate about this subject.
Hilarious how the president just spins around and talks and after, his kid gets thrown into the incinerator
*president's son dies*
President: "oh no. Anyway..."
Like a real politician using everything to there leverage, notice simply how much ol circle describes how he is a perfect leader... It was all a persasion
@@zackdrake8735but their brains do get larger as they get more sides, it’s the cog to brain ratio, the triangles have absolutely tiny cogs
@@dolphin1418 Brain size doesn’t mean intelligence. It’s also how much stuff is in there, like, wrinkles.
@@dolphin1418 look at the circles' brains closer dude
A sphere: let this flatlander touch you
Carlton: 😟
A sphere: don't worry it won't hurt you, it doesn't have any side effects-thatweknowof
I never expected A Square to sound like Owen Wilson but I can dig it
Thought the same thing
He sounds a lot like Lightning McQueen from the Cars trilogy.
@@CadetGriffin you wont believe who voices mcqueen
I love how sexism and racism feels pointless in every dimension
I mean for woman there are 2 points
1. A
2. B
the way there's like, 3 or 4 plot lines that this could have gone down and instead it ended the way it did. hello? am i dreaming?? can anyone hear me? its so cold
Like what even happened at the end? I'm guessing Flatland got bombed but why did he end up meeting a 4D creature😭 shouldn't he be dead?
@@cheesypancakes8756 exactly. monarch from pointland said when they die they go to the 2d land. So maybe A square died and went to 4d land (heaven)
I just realized, since the flatlanders' faces are basically just one-dimensional (at least as seen by other flatnaders) there is no way for their mouths to bend as seen by other flatlanders. It is impossible for the 2d muscles in their face to move the mouth to curve to make a smile or a frown. So they always just look at each other with that blank look on their face.
A. Square, showing any emotion at all:
______
ᣄ |
¯¯¯¯
Emotions are mostly expressed through action / movement / voice rather than facial expression. And you are correct, that was the rationale for not having them do things like smile or frown. It would have simply been a cheap trick strictly for the audience's sake, with no in-universe reason.
@@FilmLadd as a nerd i am, how did a woman eat herself?
@@СветланаКузьменко-з4и Uhm
@@СветланаКузьменко-з4иthe woman heard “wanna break from the ads” for the thousandth time on spotiline
@@FilmLadd😮♾️
I… don’t know what I just watched, but I enjoyed it immensely
I first saw this movie when I was 12. 8 years ago in 2016.
Now I'm 20 years old, the movie has been really formative for who I am today.
For that I really need to thank you.
Otis, thank you for sharing. can you talk a little more how its been formative for you please?
Oh I saw your review of the film you made 3 years ago! Well I didn't watch it 3 years ago, the video was 3 years old when I watched it. It was cool!
I can't believe I just now found this here on youtube. I watched this when I was a little kid, and truly, I feel like this film was a break into the person I am today... someone that just *has* to know and understand everything. I always thought that it was a fever dream, and could never fully remember what the film was even about. All that I could remember were the bizarre CG graphics and exestential themes, and probably had something to do with math, so I could never even find the name of the novel it was based on. But, here it is in all of its glory!
Watching through this now as a young adult was incredible. It's truly satisfying... I finally have closure as to who that weird sphere guy that was always burned into the back of my brain is (I found A. Sphere to be visually entrancing as a child... truly a core memory) and I can even come to understand the art for all its merits. I would like to say that I love the visual style so so much... I have so much I could say about how well executed the visuals are aesthetically and thematically but I don't really want to write a novel in here right now LOL. I'm definetly going to make all of my friends watch this with me when I get the chance.
Thank you Ladd for opening my eyes to the world of sciences and making this available for all to see easily.
"The secret philosophy is to die."
Or maybe it is more accurate to say the secret philosophy is to prepare to die. There is more to the world out here brother. The void doesn't seem real even though they insist it is and imagination seems more real than anything even though they insist it is the least real thing possible.
Think for yourself, make your own conclusions, challenge your own beliefs periodically searching for false beliefs we have overlooked. The dragon is hidden, but it is still a dragon, and there is one of those nasty serpents in all of us. For good and for ill. Break it like you would break a horse, so it will no longer resist you, and then develop a relationship with it like we do with our beloved pupper frens. Dragon is either not understood or misunderstood, not a force to fear or subjugate.
@@Moe_Posting_Chadwhat
Did I ghostwrite this or something?
In all seriousness, I agree. This was impossibly important in shaping me into who I am, and I'm just now realizing that.
@@TacoKing75 Brilliant take.
@Moe_Posting_Chad I love this comment so much. I'm happy to say that my dragon is my best friend and that I wouldn't have it any other way. To live is to learn, to write and to love your dragon, because one day death will take that privellege of thought away
I like how you can see that the circle’s brains are physically smaller
Popular synopses of "Flatland" usually just talk about A Square's encounter with the Sphere because they're using it for mathematical or scientific exposition. This is the first time I've seen someone make a serious crack at adapting the first half of the book, which is a kind of brutal satire of 19th-century society.
There's a second half?
@@kurtreber9813the second half IS the parts between A.Sphere and A.Square, the first half is what this movie includes - showing flstland society, people, how they live.
The fact a lot of it is actually not that bad coming from a 19th century person. Reconfiguration sounds like a metaphor for the schooling system at the time.
I still love the theory that Bill Cypher might of been a Low/High tier Citizen that was Broken mentality Because He felt to constricted with the rules of the world…So he burned it to the ground and (Somehow) broke free from his dimension and became the Unhinge Triangle we all know and love😂
Edit: Guys, I made this comment because it was a fun theory I just learned awhile ago, Thought it would be fun to relate to this video, Chill in the comments, Pls and thank you
Glad to see another after The Book of Bill (or just in general). The premise of Bill's denial in the details of the destruction of his world us fascinating. Especially how his parents tried to stop him from having those visions.
Have you read the Flat Dreams story? You might like it lol
I KNEW SOMEONE WOULD TALK ABOUT BILL
that is the exact reason i even came here oh my god 😭
😂 LOLLLL😂
I’m incredibly amazed to find this in hd. My 11 yr old was watching a ytber make 4d shapes in Minecraft and couldn’t understand so I showed him this 😅
Hope it helped and thank you for watching!
After I read this comment I realized we are living in the future 😂
I love the subtle hints of A Sphere's narcissism. "makes me puny by comparison" causes his pupils to get smaller, indicating contempt
I remember watching this as a child, I had an obsession with dimensions.. this movie was my first glimpse into how messed up life can be. This movie has so many messed up concepts woven together into something that’s both beautiful and hopeless. It has themes of classism, sexism, and racism strewn through it. It becomes more and more messed up the more you think about it..
There’s genocides, infanticides, extremist religious practices, abuse, suicide, and everything.. just feels so wrong. But it’s horrific in a way that makes sense. This story is messed up, but it NEEDS to be messed up to make the revelation that A Square exists in a universe with possibly infinite dimensions. His entire world has been shattered.
Dude, dimensions are so cool, definitely get back into that if you haven't already. On the subject, you should also check out numerical bases! Those being alrernatives to base 10, or decimal, like binary (base 2), hexadecimal (base 16), ternary (base 3), negadecimal (base -10), unary (base 1), base -1, base square-root-of-two, base i-1 (that's "i" as in the imaginary unit), base 2i (the quarter-imaginary base), base phi (the golden ratio), base 1.5, base 64, and many many more!
(if you couldn't already tell, I'm kinda obsessed with numerical bases 😅)
I read this book while studying mathematics. I enjoyed how the book wasn't just an exploration of 2D life but also a criticism of eugenics, which at the time (1884) was a popular viewpoint (the term was coined the year before!). Shapes breed in order to have offspring of a higher side count or 'class', which ties into Victorian beliefs about social class. You also have how women are presented, the effect of dogma on the proliferation of new ideas, etc.
I shouldn't have to explain that eugenics is bad, it's actually one of the core philosophies of Nazism (along with racism).
No one should have to, but unfortunately if we don't every now and then it may take root
@@FilmLadd
Couldn't disagree more. The flatlanders take it for granted that irregularity is bad while killing children with reshaping. You must always re-assess your ideas to judge their value, otherwise you can find yourself mindlessly trapped by harmful ideas.
I'm obviously not saying that eugenics is good. I'm saying that the statement that eugenics is bad requires justification just like any other.
@@wj11jam78 except when words have established definitions, you can find those 'justifications' within the definitions of the words themselves and the context they arise in. eugenics, by definition, is selectively restricting human reproduction in order to breed out 'unwanted' traits. historically, which is the context that the word eugenics was founded in, these traits are things like skin color, homosexuality, disabilities, and even poor economic status-- All of which are considered 'undesirable/degenerate' traits in the context of eugenics. i dont think i need to explain why this is nonsensical thinking that is just fascism at its core, and used to justify the extermination and marginalization of minority groups.
tldr; you cant debatelord eugenics mmkay?
@@gothoverheaven6239 i think you two are in agreement and haven't realized it
@@gothoverheaven6239mathematics proves god limited the number of dimensions to 2 kinda argument. You're relying on concepts as accepted by modern society. Not that I think eugenics is good either, just that you have to rely on more than something as simplistic as "inalienable human rights" on their own.
I took a break from this at the dream at 0:30 and took a nap myself. I've watched just 2 min and now im making excuses like, i want to eat dinner first. I just dont want this to end. This has absolutely been my happiest on TH-cam since its creation.
Thanks Ladd for making the film in the first place and putting it into the public domain now
You're welcome! If you haven't already, please like and subscribe! I'm trying to get to 1k subscribers to get this channel monetized. Thank you!
Oh you’re gonna grow fast
in 2nd or 3rd grade, i remember my class heading down to the library to watch this movie. seeing the 2d guy talk to the 3d guy caused me to think differently about how i understand the world around me. this genuinely changed my perspective on the universe in a way i can’t quite describe.
thank you man. i’m so glad i found this.
update: who let a second grader watch this? it’s so much darker than i remember. it’s amazing but like holy crap
It's been my experience that kids don't notice the darkness in something like, for instance, the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or The Wizard of Oz, so I can see kids not getting the darker elements of Flatland. But to be clear, I did not think of or make Flatland as a film for children.
Ditto. I had to read the book for 10th grade geometry in 1986. Others picked different books. I think this book helped open my eyes and thinking, as it did for you.
@@FilmLadd probably because of a stigma with animated = for children
Getting lost in TH-cam is fun when films like these exist... 10/10
I'm just gonna hope someone from the 4th dimension won't take me away for an experiment
GREETINGS SKALBAGGE GAZE UPON MY PERFECT HYPERCUBE BODY
ive been there
im hoping i will be i need to see 4d
This movie felt like a fever dream watching this in my 8th grade math class just to understand 2d and 3d shapes but im glad to be reminded that this exists after so long
the "peace cry" the women make is adorable
I love the war cry better
This movie is absolutely fascinating to me.
It's a very strange mish-mash of concepts, but I think that because of that the movie's presentation id incredibly unique and creative. It breaks a lot of these concepts and creatures to their most basic form so just about anyone can understand them, while still implementing this strangeness into its world.
I can easily picture plenty of movies about someone being taken out of their world and shown just how much further reality goes, but this one in particular grabs my attention because of its story and presentation working together. The CG is strange. It's not the most amazing, I can picture how these things are animated more than I can picture how they're alive, but it's still used to present a surrealness that I think suits its world really well! I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can tell people had a fun time thinking of and working on the visuals for this movie, it really shines through.
There's the story as well, which I liked, but because of that I feel like I don't actually have that much to say. I like A Sphere being such a careless, self-centered dirtbag in such a comical way. (I made a sped up gif of that scene where he's typing his report, that's how fun I find him.)
I don't know what it is about Flatland exactly, but I think I like it so much because it's so unique. Yeah, there's another Flatland film, yeah there's a Flatland book, but I don't think anything else will ever come close to the unique surrealness of this film. There's never gonna be a Flatland-like for all I know.
I don't care if this movie's not a masterpiece, but it's definitely special. It's special to me in no way another movie could be. I love that more than I could love any 10/10 film.
Do not watch this while you have a fever.
My dreams were wild.
I am actively watching this with a fever rn
Can confirm, also do not watch while extremely stoned. My reality was wild.
I also have one right now. This should be fun.
I’m on that za
@@ghdwk5596 ...shit I wanna try that now.
The music almost masks how fucking terrifying this is.
I remember in high school, some 50 odd years ago, reading Abbott's Flatland. I was fascinated by the analogies inherent in the different dimensions. Then a few years later in College, I wrote a short story about Quadraman. It was about a fourth dimensional creature who I denoted as God. Omniscient, Omnipresent, etc. Finding this movie on TH-cam brought back all those memories. Thank you for uploading this.
There seems to be some mathematical lodestones that are destined to be discovered over and over. Thank you for watching! Please like and subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks!
i really want to read your short story
Me too! ❤
@@ananyasharma2834 Thank you! It was so long ago, after many moves, I don't have it anymore. I know, I would love to be able to read it again.
@@cinderling5472 Thank you! It's been so long I don't have it anymore.
If I didnt watch this in the middle of the day I would think I made this up, I love it
You still may have made it up
@@FilmLadd honestly i dont doubt that LMFAO /lh /j
Absolutely inspired. Loved this just as much as the book. Great adaptation, everyone! Thanks!
1:30:30 Monarch of Pointland, the most powerful being in all of fiction... Untouchable, invulnerable, invincible.
idc, batgos solos
@@hsd6716who tf is that?
@@Xmaobu the power of prep time has allowed batman to ascend to goshood
You could say all other fiction is pointless.
sould or life removal as well as any geometric powers that moves the point defeats the monarch. tier 11 c is wierd but not unbeatable.
I just realized - the plants in Flatland. They run on the same principles as Spaceland leaves, yet they're also flat surfaces instead of sticks.
The plants - they evolved to absorb light from what is effectively another world, from the sun above Messiah Inc. Fascinating.
OMG I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT BUT THAT'S SO COOL
Exactly so. There was evidence all around of 3D space, but they denied it all.
Why hasn’t this film been memed yet?
because it is already a meme.
@@snurgumwurgum8238 I'm not so sure. I haven't seen this at all in meme circles...
...I swear to God, no pun intended
@@michaelsaunders1400 Meme; Memetics, used to mean something other than internet jokes. look up the metal gear solid 2 A.I. conversations.
@@snurgumwurgum8238 now, after you commented it is a meme
It's the most "Bowling alley when you get a Strike" movie you could possibly imagine
"Ahhh! Ahhh! Oh God it's a woman!" 🤣
Time: 1:28:59
Imagine God plucking you from your dimension and showing you another smaller dimension where you'd be considered a god, then taking you to their realm of gods, only for them to call you insane when you suggest there may be gods above them who do the exact same thing as them.
Time stamps for flashing lights and motion-sickness inducing spinning.
26:23 - 26:31 has his brain flashing and shaking as the camera zooms in on his neurons with dial-up noises playing until
27:20 - 32:10 a white light strobes across the screen starting at 15 seconds apart, then strobing when the king of Lineland demands A. Square prove what he's saying. All the while the people of Lineland light up whenever they speak. This scene ends with A. Square being peirced through the eye by the King of Lineland, and spinning rapidly until he wakes up in bed with his kids yelling.
38:10:16 has A. Square zipping through the marketplace so the talls go by in a blurry flash at the top and bottom of the screen.
46:09 - 46:25 The camera starts rapidly spinning to follow President Circle as he spins.
50:37 - 50:50 the camera spins and A. Square flashes white as A. Sphere pokes in repeatedly in the stomach from the 3rd Dimension. A Square is screaming during this.
51:19 - 51:52 The camera spins and flashes rapdily as A. Square is lifted out of Flatland.
58:49 - 58:52: The camera spins along with A Sphere a he leave Flatland again
59:16 - 59:20 The camera spins again
1:02:26 - 1:38:07 The camera spins as they come in to land at Messiah Incorporated
1:03:50 - 1:04:25 the camera spins again
1:04:33 - 1:11:45 The lights flicker irregularly throughout and flash as the desk shakes while A. Sphere types. The room also spins after 1:06-something.
1:06:10 - 1:06:13 light strobe as A Sphere takes flash photos of A Square
1:11:55 - 1:13:28 The camera spins as other characters enter enter the room, then as they descend in the elevator. Lights then flash as they fly and enter the room with flash photography.
1:13:28 - 1:19:15 Constant flahing light from endless flash photogragy at all time, plus the camera pinning. A. Square becomes incresingly more sicker from the force of gravity and falls over.
1:19:22 - 1:19:45 We zoom in on A. Square's spinning and glitching eye as the background swirls and spins.
1:20:40 - 1:21:46 Red lights flash as ships fire on eachother in the sky with lazers.
1:21:46 The screen flashes white as a bomb is dropped, and we see A Sphere's insides against the white background.
1:22:28 - 1:25:44 More flashing red and green lights as ships fire on eachother, then an explosion, and the screen begins to shake violently with more lights flashing. We see A Sphere's car, with a message highlighted on the screen, "A Sphere is dead! Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. No acceptance. Revenge"
1:25:44 - 1:27:08 A Square glitches as he falls back to Flatland, then falls through and into streams of white mathmatical equations falling past. The music gets louder than is necessary.
1:31:49 - 1:32:07 One of A Sphere's eyes pops out and the camera starts to spin.
1:34:24 - 1:34:47 The camera spazzes out and swirls around absurdly fast as A Square's wife roars to knock out all the guards.
1:35:38 - 1:36:01 The screen shakes as a smaller bomb goes off, then triangles in flashing colors stream past.
Thank you so much for doing this! I appreciate your help.
This should be pinned
So basically every single moment
I also think 3D world was made disconcerting on purpose to show A Square's perspectives (all the reflections and lights which didn't exist on his world)
As I understood it, in the end, when the war between the Republic and the Northern Country began, Space had already begun to destroy the flat world, as the corpses of soldiers began to disappear and in the end the inhabitants of Space pulled A square up. Not to the north, but up!
The way I see it the 4d beings contacted A Square at the end. The mysterious glow points, the trapezoid that came back to life, the guy that looked like A Square passing him at the end, I think it's all cuz of the 4th dimension being the time dimension.
I thought this too!!! @@colelevel2654
@@colelevel2654 I'd agree with you, except this movie is about spacial dimensions. Time, while commonly called "the fourth dimension" isn't a 4th spacial diminution. Our reality has three spacial dimensions and one temporal dimension.
@@MeepChangeling Assuming 3D understanding of dimensionality is correct
@@colelevel2654Time and Space are seperate dimensions courtesy of Einsteins Special Relativity. While time can be attributed as "the fourth dimension" its more accurate to seperate it into it being the firdt temporal dimension - it is clearer that way.
On that note, the entire point of Flatland is specitically about Spatial dimensions, I don't think temporal dimensions were even known when the original novel was released back in 1880. Thus A.Square is 100% referring to the spatial version, which the Spacelanders simply cannot observe just like we cannot.
And as a side note, if someone says the fifth dimension is "parallel universes", they have no fucking clue what dimensions even are, do not listen to them.
This is something i would have been forced to watch in middle school, but now i find myself wanting to see it a third time. Well done!
Thank you! Be sure to like so the algorithm will show it to others
This whole film is both a marvel, and a horrifying dystopia. Amazing job!
A. Sphere is so expressive despite only having eyes and a pac-man mouth! Also great is seeing more Spacelanders than just the sphere.
Just wish there was less gore and spinning cameras.
I agree!
It's been a while since I made the film, but as I am generally an "anti-spinner" as well, my reasoning for it in Spaceland was to shadow the bewilderment of A-Square. At the time I felt that Spaceland had to have a complete visual break from Flatland. It may or may not have worked, depending on your point of view.
She does have at least 259 points.
I know I already commented, but I would absolutely ADORE seeing A Square playing that 4d minigolf game. I don't care if he doesn’t have arms, he would be so curious and confused.
god, i absolutely ADORE the idea of actually living in the 2nd dimension. all this talk of the dimension itself but nothing about how life would be like living in it. i love this so much; both the concept and the movie itself.
honnestly and i love the concept of something being in an incomprehensible reality. i mean i could never even comprehend what 4nd spaces might be like
@@hatlessgojira yeah, its awesome. for all we know this could be a documentary. like, were living our lives in the third dimension, and a 4th dimension creature may ponder what itd be like to only live with three dimensions. same thing, just as we dont know whats really happening, they dont either; but it still could be real
If you like this, then get this book: The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World. It is about a fully functional society, biology, chemistry, technology in a 2-D world. How the body/organs work (zippered surfaces), technology (batteries work BUT no motors as magnetism requires 3-D), planetary orbits are flat out (no pun intended) weird. Music, a method to create books - a gem.
fr, pieces of paper are js tiny flatlands atp lmao.
Hello Gravity Falls fandom ^^
HAH! Hello!
Not a fan of gravity falls, I’m just a nerd who thinks the concept of 2 dimensional life is very fascinating. And this movie slaps
@@andrewevenson2657ok? Like we don’t need to know???
I'm a member of the GF fandom, but I didn't even hear about that theory until the algorithm brought me here
Hello😅
A teacher played this movie for us once in 7th grade and the entire time I felt like I was having an aneurism and that I made this movie up in my head
That could still be the case.
Such a wonderful piece!! I really love the scene where the x-axis attacked and bombed the messiah inc. , A sphere was so calm facing the end of the country and his death……love his last words. Disappointment at people’s foolishness and cowardice towards the x-axis, he just sat down and waiting, alone in the evacuated messiah building, to witness ‘another little war’. I would say that A sphere is my favorite character, though I felt a bit uncanny about A sphere totally denied A square’s idea about the possible existence of higher dimensions. The storyline and world building is definitely brilliant and very impressive, the old fashioned 90s CGI animation fits unexpectedly well with the atmosphere and it's also cool and beautiful. It is also really amazing that the whole animation was made by only one person. This indie film is surely a remarkable piece in history.
It does make sense though the reason A sphere denied it was because he never saw or thought about it
or he said it to not be in trouble what if 4d beings enter spaceland
i do know one thing A sphere or the council knows something we do not
@@Gob998 I was thinking an advanced society as the spaceland is would have mathematicians or scientists proposing that probability and might have already become a popular culture thing as we’ve seen in our world. Lots of educational videos and sci-fi stuff talking about higher dimensions. As the CEO of the Messiah Inc which is responsible for the flatland project, A sphere’s denial kinda confused me. Though these are my thoughts it doesn’t do any harm to the story and character development.
This is so real
@@ecdetrick4560 The real meat and potatoes of that scene is that A Sphere actually realizes that A Square spoke the truth about the existence of a fourth dimension. In fact, it *broke* A Sphere. That's why he simply chose to sit there, as the bombs went off, declaring that "ignorance is bliss". He spent so long thinking himself the pinnacle of creation *and* the pinnacle of his people that it made him lethargic until he simply gave up.
Maybe in Spaceland, culture around the fourth dimension is similar to Flatland’s treatment of the concept of a third dimension. 4D being a concept known only to a few elite, and otherwise considered heresy, with anyone preaching of its existence being locked up or killed.
1:04:30
*beautiful, otherworldly music playing*
Stay there. I have to write my after action report
*Violently begins slamming his tentacles on the keyboard*
TH-cam kept recommending me this and I didn't understand why. Now I learned no to question the algorithm any longer.
I'm 24 minutes in, there's carnage and cruelty beyond belief and yet I can't look away.
Most chilling last words
_Shhh, ignorance is bliss..._
- A-Sphere
DEAD
I found this on accident. But I'm so glad I did. I love this movie!❤
Thank you for finding it and for the kind words!
"By accident", "On purpose"; but, yes, this is an awesome movie!
While at first a bit jarring I was quickly immersed and captured by this world. The world building of how their society worked was amazing and I just couldn’t stop watching till the end.
Glad I found this diamond
I sincerely believe this is one of the best, if not the best movie I've ever seen
I always loved this movie
its great
Same, this has been a favorite of mine for a very long time now
Glad to see I'm not the only one who came back to this because of Bill Cipher and his new book.
but now the question I have.
How can bill see the stars if he must have a 3 dimensional eye then?
and that means his father and mother must have created a 3D object in a 2D plane which is basically impossible unless a 3D being inserted it varies a some sort of surgery between a infinitely thin object and if, for WHY?!
get what I mean?
@Xmaobu
No, we saw A squares perspective. They can see 3D as well, they just need to be lifted out.
It is possible that bill gained enough power to edit his being to "optimise" his eye to look into the 3rd dimension.
When A sphere was trying to explain sight to A square, he said having an eye inside himself. If we look at Bill, he has exactly that. An eye in the middle of his body.
welp he does have his eye in the middle of his body
on his insides, so to speak
A Sphere said something about how A Square would need an eye on his insides. Bill has an eye on the inside.
If Bill were normal like the other flatlanders he'd probably look like this:
/\
o \
/____\
But instead he looks like this
/\
/👁\
/____\
So maybe he was constantly looking upward?
@@FrenchToastWaffle maybe he was disfigured at birth and didnt get the OP done
What a great movie, I remember stumbling onto this after doing some bong hits with my buddy one weekend, and words can't describe what it made me feel at the time. Now I come back to it every so often, with a more sober disposition, and still love every minute of it.
This movie and its "stylistic choices" is a work of art ❤
Everyone here talks about how enjoy the science part of it, which I do, but the humor is so great too!
Oh man, this movie is always a wild ride and I want to commend you on such amazing work. Gosh, there are so many spatial concepts, I can hardly wrap my brain around them all. But the glowpoints always stood out the most to me and it always felt like A. Square referring to stars as glowpoints felt like subtext.
At first I considered that maybe they were 0D worlds that could exist in the planes of higher dimensions, kinda like how Flatland existed in Spaceland. But looking at it further, it seemed like Flatland existing in Spaceland wasn't a natural occurrence, or intentional by the people of Spaceland. Especially with the signs under Flatland saying it was dangerous and unexplored, and considering the Spacelanders' revulsion to Flatland being in their world, this wasn't done by either dimension on purpose. It could be a contextual device by some 4D beings to teach Spacelanders about the difference between their dimensions, utilizing lesser dimensions that the Spacelanders could comprehend.
And, both the ending and the scene where the rectangle woman "eats" herself show the same point of light. Which brings me back to the glowpoints; I hypothesize that maybe the glowpoints are actually 4D beings. The glowpoint is just a part of their body they are extending into the lower dimensional worlds, maybe a vertex I don't know. The whole time we see Flatland scenes, we view it from a Spacelander's perspective looking into it, meaning that the glowpoints of a higher dimension wouldn't be comprehensible to our 3 dimensional vision as anything other than what the 4D beings would want us to see. A Sphere "breaking" A Square's glowpoint could've just been the result of the 4D entity moving, or being moved, slightly and showing a different lower dimensional slice of that 4D being's body. To tie this all together, A Square calling the stars glowpoints may hint at this being the case again, with 4D beings having physical contact with the lower dimensional Spaceland, with their slices appearing as glowing points again. I have no doubt regular stars exist in Spaceland's universe and most of them are just that, but some may be 4D beings keeping a close eye on Spaceland. And even though they appear to be at great height or distance to us, to a 4D being, them making contact with up in the sky or right on the ground may be such a short distance to them that it doesn't matter to them. Once again, similar to how A Sphere could go from A square's house to the Senate building in such a short distance and short amount of time in the third dimension. Ugh, my brain hurts.
I love these theories. I also noticed A Line eating herself, or "escaping Flatland". Maybe the glow point going out shows its disapproval or that it's no longer needed? Either way, it recognizes that A Sphere's about to do his thing and gets out of the way
@@indisputable3 The thought of a 4D being being disappointed in a lost opportunity does make sense. If they wanted to inform Spacelanders about the fourth dimension, logic dictates they could easily try to use Flatlanders to cozy Spacelanders up to that logical conclusion, instead of 4D making direct contact with 3D. Heck, we see that 3D making contact with 2D has pretty much been a failed effort for three thousand years, and the same rings true for the 3D "madmen" that see slices of supposed 4D beings, so this shortcut of making the concept graspable, whilst not flooding a lower dimensional being with information it can't truly comprehend would be simpler. We have that in real life, where even if we can't actually imagine a 4D shape, or true slice of one (hard to tell if hyper shapes are truly accurate or not), we can conclude a fourth dimension could exist with the logic of lower dimensions having consecutively higher dimensions above them.
This was so good, oh my goodness. A. Sphere’s whole deal was hilarious
I love how this movie conceptualizes the whole flatlander idea, but I just had to laugh at the editing. I understand it was for kids, but playing jaunty music after showing dudes getting killed repeatedly throughout was pretty jarring in a macabre dark humor way. Show a child who died of an unnecessary medial procedure getting tossed into an incinerator? No worries, it's 🎶Fiesta time🎶! Show a bunch of solders being ripped apart? Don't think about it, it's 🎶fiesta time🎶! Show protestors being brutally gunned down? Its no big deal, it's 🎶fiesta time🎶!
Well yes, it was intended to be contrapuntal. The Spaceland sequence especially, which echoes A Sphere's giddy sociopathy as he plows through Spaceland causing mayhem and destruction in his wake.
It was meant to contrast, like dramatic irony. The circle president was just totally fine with throwing his kid in the fire and a cheerful march plays as he walks away. Also wtf about this seems like a kids movie lol