With the computer market exploding into success the last 20 years more and more movies are featuring people using computers. Being a computer geek myself, I expect a level of “technological reality” for the movies that are not in the realm of “sci-fi”, but directors usually are feeding their movies with superficial scenes about computers just for the happy clapping from the computer-illiterate audience.One of the worst movies I have seen lacking this technological reality, is “Hackers”, with Angelina Jolie, a teen movie from 1995. In the movie, a virus is to attack, and the director is feeding us with a cheaply-rendered city with a virus traveling through it.
On other movies, like “The Net” of 1995 with Sandra Bullock, the main character is able to hack and login into secure systems in a matter of moments without extra tools.
In movies like “You’ve got Mail” with Tom Hanks or “Office Space” we see a desktop made of many different… OSes. For example, you get a MacOS bar, but all widgets of the main app could be Windows-like (like the progress bar and window the main character of “Office Space” gets when copies a floppy disk). “Jurassic Park” also features a terrible UI in its computer scene, despite the rest of the rendering work in the movie being outstanding for the early ’90s mark.
In the action movie “Swordfish” with John Travolta and Halle Berry, we also see Hugh Jackman (‘Wolverine’ in X-Men) login into a secure system “just like that”, while when he gets his multi-monitor computer to hack on, we see cool-looking interfaces that don’t exist today.
Please note that most of the user interfaces seen on movies are nothing but Macromedia Director movies with limited user (actor) interaction. Most of the recent Star Trek series and movies are running Mac OS and Director too.
There are of course interfaces that are “acceptable” because they either do make sense(!) or because the movie in question falls under the sci-fi/fantasy category in which case anything is possible and acceptable.
My favorite computer scene can be seen in 2003’s “Matrix Reloaded”: just after Morpheus’ ship enters Zion. People in white, in a big white room are using a finger-draggable system to manipulate objects in their transparent screens. Similar to this idea is what Tom Cruise is using in 2002’s “Minority Report”. His interface is a bit more loaded with video than the plainer Matrix scene, but works equally well. Microsoft has already a prototype of a similar technology in its labs, as it was unveiled a few months ago.
Another good point of “Matrix Reloaded” was when Trinity gets into the electricity building and uses the computer, the screen is a simple Unix terminal. The fact that the directors could distinguish the difference between the Matrix future world and “our world” and offer two different interfaces, but still appropriate to each timeline, is to their credit.
One of my favorite interfaces on movies is Star Trek’s LCARS. It was designed in 1986 and the fact that it was designed for a TV series (as opposed to high-cost movies) made it look and feel really innovative, and even today still looks good, so it is continued to be used on all Star Trek:TNG, VOY and DS9 series/movies. Attention to detail and out of the box thinking made Michael Okuda one of the best creative designers in Hollywood.
Getting the issue further, I have heard people complaining that this or that movie was not correct about this physics law, or astronomy or biology law etc. It is difficult for directors and script writers to get all details right when themselves are not professional biologists or computer users, but as time goes by and as general knowledge spreads more among their audience, the need for more technically-correct movies is increasing.
For example, can someone please explain to me why ALL sci-fi movies/series have super-clear video when the movie heroes communicate via their starship’s viewscreen, while the accompanied sound sounds like 11Khz Mono telephone-quality garbage? It’s the video that costs sheer amounts of bandwidth, not the sound!
Duh!
I always find it funny all the wierd beeps and twirps that accompany absolutely every action on computers in movies. Every click, every keystroke, twirp twirp beep.
One thing that really annoys me is that actors will go through rigorous training and study to get everything right for a role, EXCEPT learn how to type for their typing scene. Did you notice all the hunt-and-pecking in Hackers? Or how Sandra Bullock never, ever hits the spacebar in The Net?
The best scene ever in a computer movie: In Hackers when all the “Hackers” SPRAY PAINT their keyboards!! LOL!
Also, Angelina Jolie in that movie says her Apple Laptop has a P6 processor…she must be really good to have hacked that box together.
I also liked when the Plague tells Crash Override to “Turn on your computer and set it to receive a file.” Crash turns on his computer, it boots up instantly, he flips a switch and receives the file. Couldn’t they have hired at least ONE person who knows anything about computers to clean up the dialog a little bit?
Hacking into stoplights from a laptop in the back seat of a moving taxi was a classic too.
Honestely, Hackers is one of the worst, most painful movies ever made, but damn funny to laugh at.
Haha, agreed.
in fact, if i remember correctly, not only does Trinity use the UNIX terminal in that film, but also uses SSH!
this made me so happy… that it wasn’t telnet! obviously SSH encryption is enough to make it past the matrix!
you’re right though – its soooooo annoying seeing people just turn up to any terminal and just know what to type before they say with a deep frown, “hang on.. i… i think i’m in”.
oh – and the OSes of the future do have superfluous CPU-hungry animations for every menial task. when you type “ls” … you won’t just get a directory listing, it’ll have sound effects, animations and probably be in 3D too. taking the future-supersecure-superfast compuaters a full 3 seconds to give you a result. see, Microsoft are on the right track after all!
they really should make an effort to stop partonising the audience – they put so much effort into perfecting everything else, even when the audience don’t notice, but it seems they go out of their way to do toy GUIs! its enough to turn a serious film into a comedy.
having said that – the computer in 2001: A Space Oddyssey aged very well. certainly no “toy gui” feel to that at all. film makes, take note. i do recommend the book “Hal, a legacy” (or similar title, search amazon), its very good, with popular scientists talking about the film and its impact and relevence.
You claimed Jurrassic Park was unrealistic.
Yeah, the dinosours were fine, but the computers were kind of fake.
Its a movie. Movies don’t have to be real. People go to movies to be entertained, and a UNIX terminal is not entertaining.
Yeah, “Hackers” was funny for the literate like us, but my computer illiterate friend liked it too, and thats a nice thing.
I think a bigger complaint would be the way hackers are portrayed, as “evil”. Thats just insulting to the many “hackers” who try to help.
> Its a movie. Movies don’t have to be real. People go to movies to be entertained, and a UNIX terminal is not entertaining.
I think that this changes with each generation. When you see Flash Gordon from 1930’s, or the sci-fi B-Movies of the ’50s, you laugh at them today. You can’t stand all these innacuracies.
But you wouldn’t laugh back then.
Same today, we get people who do have a clue about a few things, and they get bothered when they see a few things not done better…
One thing I see repeatedly (and it drives me nuts each time) is when people are in a dark room and they show the faces of the users, the characters on the monitor are somehow projected onto them.
I hope they have a great insurance programme if they have to work while staring into a projector lens all day…
Another, why is it that most people in TV and movies rarely, if ever, use a mouse? The request “Zoom in on this section here” is not followed by clicking and dragging a square with which to select the desired area, but with a phenominal amount of key clicking as they must have to manually calculate the area involved and specify the individual pixels of the bounding box.
Also, what magical, wonderous world do they live in, in which all media and all file formats are 100% functional on all computers and in all systems? Save a 3D rendering with scrolling data, facts and dancing hamsters on a DVD and it displays just fine an hour later on someone’s laptop.
One final thing. Humans today have enough trouble communicating to eachother with signals and lasers and video/audio formats. Yet somehow when humans meet aliens, they just have to turn on the screen and have a chat.
I’d just like to point out that the file browser in Jurassic Park is, in fact, an actual program used on UNIX. So when the girl shouts, “I know this, this is UNIX!” it is actually UNIX.
Check it out:
http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html
When I watched this it ruined an otherwise pretty good movie. In The Recruit there is a virus that spreads through regular power lines. How is this possible? The power supply is somehow decoding variations in the voltage and sending it to the CPU?? And then the lead character (who is supposed to be a computer genius, remember) says something like “No firewalls to get through.” In this awed kind of “it must be genius” voice. What about a UPS? Wouldn’t that flatten out any variations, or even a simple surge supressor. It bothers me that they couldn’t think of anything better. I guess they wanted it to sound exotic and dangerous, but, come on!
Hehe. True there are problems with computers and geeks, and how both are depicted in movies. Remember in movies that computers can explode, throwing shrapnal. But they do also tantalize our imagination as to how computers could be. e.g. Star Trek, Star Wars, Minority Report.
BTW Don’t also forget how computers are depicted on TV as well. e.g Earth: Final Conflict.
2001 = Who doesn’t have 1 sound sample from this movie on their computer?
wargames = gotta get me a w.h.o.p.p.e.r.
office space = “pc load letter, wtf is that?”
coyote ugly = i think there was a computer in there somewhere
honorable mention: tv series whiz kids from the 80’s!
Well, when Trinity uses SSH in TMR, not only does she use it, she exploits the flaw in SSH1 to get into the power station! Also, judging by some shots, she uses mknod!
Whoever thought that up did the homework. This wasn’t even as security-themed a movie as Hackers or Swordfish, and yet more realism than either.
What about the time in Alias when the geeky guy Marshall is kidnapped and they have him in front of a computer (maybe Linux or BSD), the first thing I noticed was that he was using KDE maybe 2.x.
Well alright there wasn’t any inaccuracies there but it was still good that they had a *nix desktop in a TV show.
Zoolander movie: The Hansel character over the phone: “You mean the files are IN the computer?” and then boom, he throws the iMac on the floor to break it and find the files inside it…
Ok, that was just good humor with computers on that movie, not complaining.
Uploading Virus [—– ] 30%
Uploading Virus Done..
Also just go to the alian ship. Hook into a port, (We already know the Hw connector these alians use) and without any effort (logging, encription etc.) just upload code to take down their entire security. Nice….
I love how images from surveillance and stoplight cameras can be zoomed in and enhanced via the Magical Image Enhancement feature, thus yielding a big break in the case. I really enjoy the Law & Order series, but when cracking a case involves these type of antics I’m really disappointed in the writers.
Seriously though, I wonder how much of this Hollywood OS b.s. contributes to FUD in those unfamiliar with modern technology.
I’d love to see someone create an OS called Hollywood OS that borders on the ridiculous, but appeals to the masses. Wait, never-mind, Longhorn is on its way.
Yup, saw it a few days ago on another movie too (ST:TNG also has such an episode). They zoom into a very pixelated unusable picture and then they somehow “enhance” it, and boom, they get a crystal clear version of the photo and so they find clues for their situation. Hehe…
as I geek :p I saw Angela Beneth hacking a pc with ip 224.345.186.156
When you know some things about tcp/ip you see sutch mistakes 
From an “Antitrust” review at Slashdot:
“Consider the film’s conceit, for instance, that one of the ways the evil corporation NURV (“Never Underestimate Radical Vision”) stays competitive is to use hidden video cameras to spy on the keyboards of all the smart young programmers in the world and feed their discoveries into a central network — hidden in a day care center. They then commit their perfidy to videotape, and leave the evidence in non-encrypted, accessible files. That’s only one example of the screenplay’s foolishness.”
Read the rest on Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/01/11/1543224&mode=thread&tid…
It always amuses me when “geeks” get so upset over the depiction of computing in movies.
Modern cinema’s imperative is fast moving storylines with intriguing visuals. Watching someone screwing about with a CLI for 15 minutes or logging on to a dial-up AOL account just for the sake of accuracy ain’t going to make the cut. Besides which, using a computer in a movie is usually superfluous to the plot, not the plot itself (the Matrix excepted). So in a movie like “Patriot Games”, where Harrison Ford is desparately trying to download a file before the bad guy erases it, it’s not important that it’s technically impossible, it’s important that the tension is created to advance the story.
I alos find it funny that so many people are willing to suspend their disbelief at sci-fi movies that depict faster than light travel, teleportation and sentient energy clouds but complain that computers don’t work like that.
While it may be true that Hollywood doesn’t know much about computers, it’s equally true that computer geeks don’t understand cinema.
“(like the progress bar and window the main character of “Office Space” gets when copies a floppy disk).”
That’s the funniest scene!!
> While it may be true that Hollywood doesn’t know much about computers, it’s equally true that computer geeks don’t understand cinema.
Wise words indeed.
However, the point is that it can become better and please everyone if the directors know what to do and how to do it… Matrix-Reloaded’s and Minority Report’s monitors are “technically impossible” (today), however they DO fly with all audiences, because they are not silly. These are good examples of what is superfluous but still “fly” and cut it just fine.
…the windows 95 video guide staring matthew perry and eugenia’s fellow countrywomen jennifer aniston? LOL it’s hilarious I tell you, someone must have thought that actors could act like they know that stuff, they don’t!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010111&mode=classic
Miranda writes a “Movie OS”.
For example, can someone please explain to me why ALL sci-fi movies/series have super-clear video when the movie heroes communicate via their starship’s viewscreen,
Myself, I always wondered how Captain Kirk could come out of a fight with perfect hair.
Ok, so we like seeing real computers at use in our movies and real operating systems. But they don’t want kids to go out and try and get the same program or do the same exploit. After hackers the movie came out there was a hugh jump in script kiddies getting caught doing things. Before that, hacking wasn’t apart of the evening news till kids followed what they saw and did stupid stuff. And the IP thing, come on, its the same reason they use 555 in moves for telephone numbers. They don’t belong to anyone, so people wont end up calling them, or trying to hack a certain IP address.
Computers are not the only thing that movies can’t get right. How about when you see a fully loaded F-18 taking off an aircraft carrier then the next scene it is a clean F16 and finally at the attack scene it turn to be a F4.
It is frustating to see a movie where most of the money is spend on the actors and on the special effect and the commun every day stuff is discarted.
Like I say to my kids just put your brain in neutral and enjoy the ride!
Or how his shirt would be trashed and a healthy chest would unveil on every episode!
Space is possibly a very dangerous place for clothes…
Now, if Spock could do the same, I would cheer…(/me is a Spock fan, not a Kirk one
Though the plot of Antitrust was insultingly full of holes, the computer UIs shown in the film were top notch. Again, they were all probably director puppetware, but they looked and acted like a real computer, so that was refreshing. The worst is when “hacking” involves flying through some kind of 3d fantasyscape.
The Hansel character over the phone: “You mean the files are IN the computer?”
“It’s so… SIMPLE…”
I am willing to suspend disbelief because their priority is entertainment, and it’s hard to make a computer entertaining. For example, Sneakers had that absurd thing with cryptography that only worked with American systems or something. But everyone knew it was silly, and it wasn’t even important; it was just used to make the movie funnier. The rest of the movie was really very good, where people used social engineering to defeat security, and it rode that line between humor and realism.
Swordfish was pretty interesting. It was all about hacking, but I don’t remember any egregiously bad scene. That fear & sex scene was dicey, but I can’t remember what was on the screen, if they even showed it.
Enemy of the State was pretty good too. It reminded me of those RTS games.
The nice thing about TV shows is they don’t usually have a budget to make idiotic UIs. Buffy was pretty decent, talking about “googling,” and that weird thing of tricking someone by pressing the DELiver butten was obviously unrealistic but well-handled.
>the computer UIs shown in the film were top notch.
It was a real Gnome 1.x.
>The worst is when “hacking” involves flying through some kind of 3d fantasyscape.
Precicely.
SofaShark says: “it’s important that the tension is created to advance the story”, and “computer geeks don’t understand cinema”.
on the contrary. there is a much richer and deeper drama, suspense, terror and delight to be had in uploading, downloading, network tapping and so on. its just that film makers either don’t know, or don’t have the ability to portray this in their films.
on your basis, you would only have the lowest common denominators to provide suspence and thrill in films. but no, many a time, films have been made about experiences and subjects that most viewers are not expert in. but they LEARN as they watch. they learn to appreciate someone elses experiences and feelings and perspectives.
i guess it depends on what you watch films for, its its jumping-screaming-and-fighting, then maybe not. if you watch to be informed, to learn, to taste something new, then of course viewers can be made to feel the same things that hackers do.
2 examples – did anyone see that documentary they did on Andrew Wiles’s tortured proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Even if you weren’t a mathematician you appreciated quite a lot of what a mathematician goes through. did anyone see that film “Ulysses Gaze” – it certainly took me on a journey of not-always-pleasant discovery.
a case in point – science writing has never been so popular.
computing in films -> it can be done!
I’m working on a screenplay currently and it contains a fair bit of hacking and cracking. I would like to make sure that the details are right. If anyone would be interested in corresponding with me on some of the details, and has some experience in intrusion detection and prevention, please email me. Or, if you know someone who would be a good candidate, then introduce me. Thanks!
You missed my point. It may be true that drama suspense and terror are to be had by a hacker, but you can’t expect an audience to be engaged by watching an “accurate” depiction of the activity of hacking.
Suppose your movie hacker has to break into a government computer. Disregarding backdoors, socially engineered password or grossly insecure systems (which in themselves make good alternative plot points), it’s going to take long hours, most probably at a CLI, largely using automated tools (i’m guessing about this of course
). So most of your hacker’s time will be spent watching something like a dictionary hack scroll by while eating pizza or picking his nose. Hardly cinematic. Sure you could cut a few scenes together where he’s actually typing something, but you’re still stuck with the unappealing command line, and frankly, watching someone else type is very boring.
As for the documentary, well, different rules apply. You are obliged to portray events in a truthful manner. In any event, the actual mathematics were peripheral to Wiles’ human drama, which is what the documentary set out to show.
I’m sure you can portray computing accurately in films, I just doubt that anyone would want to watch it. So, it would seem, does Hollywood.
This is so true I wish it was in the film.
Have a look you’ll get a good laugh, raise the volume to hear it.
http://andrewkendall.dyndns.org/downloads/the_matrix_restarted_smal…
just what I’ve always wanted..very clean and simple…unlike most modern GUIs
You know what program they routinely use in movies to create those futuristic interfaces? Object Desktop (www.objectdesktop.com).
Specifically WindowBlinds for the GUI and DesktopX for the rest of it.
It’s often used poorly as has been mentioned but they usually are trying to communicate to the audience rather than worrying about being authetnic.
Which movie was it where Jeff Goldblum blew up the alien spacecraft (while it was in outer space) with his Apple Powerbook? Talk about great networking! 😉
This reminds me of an interesting video whose one little technical mistake (or is it?) sticks in your mind. The problems of being a “sophisticated user” of machines…
http://www.theembassyvfx.com/quicktime/tetra.mov
This Lisp weblog entry talks a little about it, but you should watch the video first to get the full effect, without spoilers.
http://lemonodor.com/archives/000484.html#000484
Well as one person quipped. “A movie is life, with the boring parts snipped out.”
There are these guys called consultants. Pay them and they’ll advise you on whatever subject you want. With movies costing between 10 to 100 million dollars, producers have no excuse at all for not hiring qualified people to check their scripts before peddling crap toward spectators. In some cases, it would be enough to hire undergraduate students.
The scene with Trinity in The Matrix Reloaded may be accurate according to nowadays techniques. Nonetheless, it’s absurd to use nmap or ssh because the movie is supposed to happen centuries in the future, not today (and yes, I read Fyodor comments on that matter). It’s the equivalent of saying that last week, burglars used slingshots to rob Fort Knox. That’s cheesy, plain and simple.
Let’s talk about Star Wars : Obi-Wan Kenobi got “vaporised” (for lack of a better term) by Darth Vader’s lightsaber. Yet, in episodes 1 and 2, when characters were struck with that same weapon, they didn’t disappear. Was this an afterthought from the producers ? Another bummer : the first trilogy racked in so much money Lucas decided to add another one, but backward. Problem is episodes 1 and 2 feature more sophisticated technologies than episodes 4 to 6, which are supposed to happen later. Isn’t it stupid, what producers can do just to get more bucks ?
Those who have watched The Time Machine were surprised to see that 900,000 from now, some people will still be able to speak english with a New York accent. Gosh, in reality, we can’t even speak languages that are 5,000 years old !
Do not be misled to thinking that Hackers is a movie about computers, that’s absolutely ridiculous. The movie is a social commentary about sub-cultures, and nobody cares how cheesy the computer scenes look. If you do, then you mustn’t be a big fan of movies — so I would suggest to go sit back down at your computer and hit CTRL-R in your browser until Slashdot updates.
I thought my reading of this article was thorough but perhaps I still managed to skim over the paragraph that contained the point?
What kind of dope was this guy smoking in the 70’s and were can I get some of it ?
http://sung.producto-valvo.com/funny/bbaggins.mov
Would have to be that Esper machine that Harrison Ford was talking to in his living room in BladeRunner to analyze some kind of holographic digital photo one of the replicants left behind (“a little left, more, OK now zoom in….”) The interaction felt quite real, IIRC, but I guess that machine would be an embedded system and not a “computer”.
I think that the interfaces in the Max Headroom show (’80s)were a good example of something that both geeks and normal people could find acceptable to look at and got the point across and kept the plot moving forward. Remember, ALL professionals typically hate the way that their professions are inaccurately depicted in movies, TV and novels – this includes lawyers, docters, police – everyone.
Gawd, that movie was so sad. I really cringed for him when I watched Hugh Jackman madly pounding away randomly on the keyboard to hack a government network while a gun was pointed at is head. Once he broke in and was asked how he had done it, he responded, “I’m not sure, sometimes I don’t remember what I did and it just happens!” – like some kind of half-mystical zen-like force was involved in it. Oooooooh!!! He said those lines with such a straight face all I could do was stare dumbly at the screen at him.
come on, its the same reason they use 555 in moves for telephone numbers
Gee, I always wondered how came all numbers in the U.S.A. started with 555!
Or how Europeans or others can get wrong ideas of America through movies!
He can’t remember because something else was happening under the table. How unrealistic, how many times does that happen to a geek!
🙂
My favorite computer interaction scene is from the Star Trek movie where they go back in time to save the whales. Scotty tries to use a mac. Scotty speaks to the computer: “Computer, please compute …”. Someone corrects him: “You have to use the mouse.”. Scotty picks up the mouse, and speaks into it: “Right then. Computer, please compute …”.
Might the use of UI elements from different OSes be important to avoid copyright/trademark violations? I don’t know very much about the law but it seems that if a fictional UI used in a movie were too similar to a real life one, then there could be legal hassles.
Correction 1: In the matrix, they depict the world around 1999. Therefore the use of ssh is entirely correct. It is in the future, but simulation (The matrix) is modelled around 1999.
Correction 2: About language, there is really not much you can do about language because the audience have to understand you. You could try create a few new words and all, but at the end of the day, you must not lose the audience. Language is very peripheral. However, is you are doing a film about the middle ages, language becomes more important, because people can actually relate to that.
Slightly off topic, but has anyone read ‘Congo’? They had computers that could magically analyze everything from pixelated images to defining what type of animal was motion captured by their movement patterns. Some of the worst pie-in-the-sky computer technology I’ve ever encountered. And that was written by Michael Crichton, someone who I thought did good research.
sofashark: hehehehe I know what you mean !
Serge at vanginderachter: but americans are all like that
and how come there is so many of them all with 555 telephone numbers ? not even area codes can sort that out
John Blink: The other thing under the desk happens to me 3 times out of every 5 times I use my pc hehehe
Here in the UK we have a soap opera. It is called Emmerdale. It involves a local village in the Yorkshire Dales. It used to be called Emmerdale Farm and was more centered on the farming community, but now the whole village of about 50 people make up the programme. Now the strange thing is that any PCs in the village all run Linux. Any computer display you see usually has either the gnome desktop or the gnome file manager ( I forget what that is called coz I run kde)….
Anyway, I think that the producers of Emmerdale are not trying to promote the use of Linux in everday business/home/webcafe life, rather they do not want to have to pay royalties for showing Windows screens.
Let’s talk about Star Wars : Obi-Wan Kenobi got “vaporised” (for lack of a better term) by Darth Vader’s lightsaber.
I don’t think obi gets vaporised, I think it’s more of an obi sort of suicides himself (no the sabre), at least that’s how I always saw it. And it’s like Vader is searching for him in the fallen cloak aftwards.
I loved it in this movie when they hacked into the bank computer by patching some cat5 cables between several hubs.
GIVE ME A BREAK!! I just about died laughing at that one. I didn’t know that I could steal billions of dollars simply by cascading some hubs together did you? 🙂
You remember the voice-instruction sequences in Star Trek, don´t you? It is always something like Georgi saying:
“Re-route all power to bla-bla-”
Computer: “Cannot execute action: violation of security protocols”
Georgi: “Override code LaForge-Alpha-Tango-Seven-Fox”.
Computer: “Code accepted, re-routing all power to…”
Well, in one Andromeda episode (yeah, I know, it is not a *real* Sci-Fi series, but it´s funny after all!) Beka instructed the ship to do something:
Beka: “All energy to left anti-proton container” (or something like that)
Computer: “Security breach! Enter authorization code!”
Beka: “Authorization code… SHUT UP AND DO WHAT I TELL YOU!”
Computer: “Authorization accepted”
LOL 🙂
I realize that computers in ordinary life are not flashy enough to be used in movies as is, and need to be jazzed up by Hollywood. The only thing that used to drive me crazy in the 80’s and 90’s were people watching these films that knew me as a “computer geek” who would not be computer literate at all, would see all these neat things being done by computers and would not even question the reality of it. Then when they would see me doing things that were not as flashy and cool, and so quickly (like new windows opening and closing on screen full of content like in Star Trek 4 just with a few random keystrokes), they would assume I was not very good at it. I remember having explain to them that computer effects in movies are not reality, but when you are a kid trying to tell an adult they are wrong, it is hopeless. Another movie would come out and we would have to start all over again. Oh well!
SofaShark:
It always amuses me when “geeks” get so upset over the depiction of computing in movies.
It doesn’t amuse us geeks, who have our suspension of disbelief blown to crap when it happens.
Modern cinema’s imperative is fast moving storylines with intriguing visuals.
No. Modern Hollywood cinema’s imperative is -entertaining films-. I’d like to hear you describe how the Gibraltar scene in ‘Das Boot’, the buckaroo scene in ‘Red October’, or the love scene in ‘Top Gun’ are fast-moving.
I alos find it funny that so many people are willing to suspend their disbelief at sci-fi movies that depict faster than light travel, teleportation and sentient energy clouds but complain that computers don’t work like that.
Disbelief is suspended when everything on the screen makes sense. Absolute accuracy isn’t required. Only verisimilitude.
While it may be true that Hollywood doesn’t know much about computers, it’s equally true that computer geeks don’t understand cinema.
Um.. what? It’s not my job to “understand” cinema. It’s Hollywood’s job to entertain me, until such time as Hollywood pays me $10.75 to watch their pap. Furthermore, the very -problem- is that we understand cinema too well. See the posting about movie consultants by Mark Gruber.
It may be true that drama suspense and terror are to be had by a hacker, but you can’t expect an audience to be engaged by watching an “accurate” depiction of the activity of hacking.
Why not? “Finding Forrester” was about a guy typing at a typewriter. They didn’t feel the need to invent some stupid 3D expert system interface with naked chicks and F1 cars displayed directly into your retina to make it a good film.
ILBT,
Good Grief
“Let’s talk about Star Wars : Obi-Wan Kenobi got “vaporised” (for lack of a better term) by Darth Vader’s lightsaber. Yet, in episodes 1 and 2, when characters were struck with that same weapon, they didn’t disappear. Was this an afterthought from the producers ? Another bummer : the first trilogy racked in so much money Lucas decided to add another one, but backward. Problem is episodes 1 and 2 feature more sophisticated technologies than episodes 4 to 6, which are supposed to happen later. Isn’t it stupid, what producers can do just to get more bucks ?”
I decided not to watch any of the 3 prequels. Was I right?
The movie you’re thinking of where Jeff Goldblum blows up an alien spaceship with his Apple Powerbook is Independence Day, and I remember I had a hell of a time trying to explain to my friend why it was ridiculous to think an Apple Powerbook running OS9 could interface so easily with the alien ship’s network. He didn’t get it. I suppose maybe AppleTalk is really popular off-world, but that’s a little too much disbelief to suspend. Maybe he just uploaded the whole OS9. 🙂
I don’t see it so much anymore, but in the ’90s, did you notice how absolutely every computer in every movie was an Apple? Before OSX it was completely laughable to see a “geek” or a “hacker” using a Macintosh in a movie…no way, no how were “hackers” running the MacOS at that time.
It was a nuclear bomb that blew up the alien spacecraft, I wonder if it had problems interfacing with the other “alien atoms”.
I don’t want to insist but as mention before the virus of Independence day is a “Deus Ex Machina”. A unrealistic event that resolve the plot of a play. Typically on stage, imagine the hand of God coming from the sky and saving the heroe from his certain death. Mostly use in ancient Greek tragedy, is is – in my view – often use as an escape to force an happy ending in Hollywood production.
I can undertsand SofaShark that most of the people don’t see this “Deus Ex Machina” as such because they lack knowledge to appreciate, and so the plot seems consistent. But if you know cinema, more precisely theater, you should recognize those and should understand the lack of finess to use such artifice.
anon, I was wondering if someone was going to bring that movie up =)
Despite the fact that the interfaces aren’t what you see on your regular computer, you get a very realistic impression from the movie of the way computers and other technical equipment are used.
Even the more ‘unrealistic’ scenes (seeing the change in Dean’s package at the store in 3D, matching bank balances to payments, etc.) are well within capability for systems today. Considering this is supposed to be the U.S. N.S.A., being well funded and advanced technologically, then it makes sense they would have such capabilities on hand.
I appreciated their not using semi-magical enhancement technologies, not pretending that satellites can track things sideways, and other obviously bogus devices. This fit in with the plot to give a real impression of the use of technology in chasing an individual, as opposed to some form of hard to believe Big Brother TIA.
Not ‘insulting the intelligence of the computer literate’ can be achieved by striking a balance; yes, in most all cases, computers are not the focus of the film, and so having excruciating detail is unwarranted, but at the same time, having things occur that are too convenient (systems randomly working/not working because the plot calls for them) and impossible are just silly. It’s difficult to immerse yourself in the film if what you’re watching sets off your BS alarm.
Mark Gruber:
Nonetheless, it’s absurd to use nmap or ssh because the movie is supposed to happen centuries in the future, not today
That scene was set in a simulation of the late ’90s, so use of a late-’90s exploit would make sense. You can’t run REBOL in a Commodore 64 emulator…
Those who have watched The Time Machine were surprised to see that 900,000 from now, some people will still be able to speak english with a New York accent. Gosh, in reality, we can’t even speak languages that are 5,000 years old !
We don’t have 5000-year-old audible recordings of spoken language either, while they did. They also had a telepath pulling the language out of a live New Yorker’s head. The only other english speaker had a mild British accent – don’t ask me to explain that
I don’t see it so much anymore, but in the ’90s, did you notice how absolutely every computer in every movie was an Apple?
I recall reading that it was easier to sync the refresh of Apple monitors to the camera, thus avoiding flicker. Unfortunately I am completely unable to find a reference. Nowadays it will likely be more a matter of every computer having an lcd monitor.
Nope, it was not and it is not that.
Apple has special contracts with many Hollywood companies, so it gets its computers on movies.
Two words: sanctimonious crap.
A proper Deus Ex Machina only appears at the END of a performance, and it’s more often than not used to convey internal dialogue or off-stage events to the audience.
Now, the MCP in Tron. lordy! That was a computer system! And ain’t nothing like digitizing matter by destroying it. That would be like putting a photo in a flatbed scanner and having the scanner disintegrate it to get it into the computer. Though, not quite as bad as in Weird Science where the boy, Gary, simply shoved magazine clippings directly into the computer. Simply inserting a picture of Albert Einstein allowed the computer to gain more knowledge.
Anyway, interesting read. Would be cool to have seen some screen shots and stuff.
No. Modern Hollywood cinema’s imperative is -entertaining films-. I’d like to hear you describe how the Gibraltar scene in ‘Das Boot’, the buckaroo scene in ‘Red October’, or the love scene in ‘Top Gun’ are fast-moving.
“Das Boot” is not a Hollywood movie. It was originally a German mini-series. And Europeans make very different movies to Hollywood. I’m too busy laughing at Connery’s Russian accent to notice any other shortcomings of “Hunt for Red October” and the “Top Gun” love scene was entirely peripheral to the story and lasted all of 3 minutes in between the jets. I’m not sure what your point is.
Disbelief is suspended when everything on the screen makes sense. Absolute accuracy isn’t required. Only verisimilitude.
Hang on…we’re talking about dodgy UI’s here, not whether your PC can make scrambled eggs. If the UI looks false but still does what it’s supposed to do (ie provide the character with the reward, advance the story etc), then isn’t that “verisimilitude”.
It’s Hollywood’s job to entertain me…
What, you specifically? No, it’s Hollywood’s job to make money. It does that by making movies that will appeal to the widest possible audience. It doesn’t care if a few geeks get offended in the process.
Furthermore, the very -problem- is that we understand cinema too well. See the posting about movie consultants by Mark Gruber.
I did. So did others who have pointed out the shortcomings of his arguments, which I won’t repeat here.
Why not? “Finding Forrester” was about a guy typing at a typewriter.
And it sucked.
ILBT
“I Love Buttered Toast”?
Having said all of that, here’s one thing that puzzles me about movies and media in general. Why do female robots that only superficially resemble humans (I’m thinking “Bicentennial Man” rather than “T3” here) have breasts? For that matter, why do you need gender in robots at all?
Why do female robots that only superficially resemble humans (I’m thinking “Bicentennial Man” rather than “T3” here) have breasts? For that matter, why do you need gender in robots at all?
Besides the obvious superficial reasons, if we were giving it real speculation a good question may just as well be “Why not?”
For one, I think if robots were commonplace in society and their were service-oriented robots like housekeepers, etc. then it would be given a familiar appearance strictly for comfort and familiarity. Aesthetics come into play in consumer products so it makes sense.
Whereas in industry like in an assembly line a soldering machine with breasts may be really odd. Not that a female robot isn’t capable of doing the same jobs as male robots
I’m not sure you could successfully remove gender from a robot’s speaking voice since it’s either comprised of a voice artist’s recorded words, or just simply will sound like one gender by pitch and inflection.
I’m a little late to this party, but I decided to stick my oar in anyway…
I’m pretty much with SofaShark on all of this, people who find their intelligence insulted by some of this stuff are far too easily offended. I’ve a few caveats their though: the oft-referred-to scene in ID4 for starters.
I don’t see why you have to be a ‘geek’ or in anyway knowledgeable about computers to understand why this scene was complete horseshit. But then, the rest of the film is completely off the wall, so I don’t see how it matters.
I’m struggling a little here, but I seem to remember a scene in a recent film, or possibly an episode of Alias – it may even have both – in which the protagonists were able to capture data from CAT5 cables by attaching little devices to them. (For some reason, I’m leaning towards The Score, with De Niro, Norton and Brando).
Someone else mentioned The Recruit. Generally, I’m able to take the ‘suspension of disbelief’ approach to films involving computers etc., but being a Network Engineer, I found this power-cable-transmitted virus wholly laughable. But that said, it ultimately doesn’t matter because it’s a minor plot point and could easily have been something else, without altering the tale to any significant degree. The Internet just happens to be the Thing de jour at the moment.
One thing that always always always pisses me off is the aforementioned cheat of having some fantastic, non-existant technology that can convert fuzzy CCTV captures into high definition broadcast-quality images. To me, that’s just a hack used by lazy writers to progress the plot.