Back on TV: Max Headroom

infofreako writes: " Everyone's favorite 80's construct, Max Headroom, has returned thanks to the people at TechTV. According to their website, they will be rebroadcasting all 14 episodes starting this Friday! This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR. "

Comments

Ananova

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

Well, virtual people animated by computers have certainly come a long way since Max Headroom first cam around, haven't they? I remember the first time I saw anything to do with Headroom was in the movie Spaceballs, though it was an actual person rather than a simulation. It was such a cool idea at the time, but 3D stuff just didn't cut it to make stuff realistic- remember Dire Straits' music video for "I Want My MTV"?

Of course, within the past couple years, eve the past decade, there has been exponential growth in the 3D modeling industry. I mean, if the entire Titanic can realistically be rendered, why not be able to render a person in real time with realistic voice synth and physics? Just look at the upcoming game Soldier of Fortune 2. Some of the skin textures look incredibly realistic, and that can be done in real time on a GF2.

But, we have to be careful about what we do for these models. Ananova isn't giving any real humans a run for their money, but eventually we may get there. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within gave a nearly flawless rendering of humans, and it will only be a limited amount of time before that can be done with real time processing. It's not like we'll be turned into a slave race like in The Matrix or anything, but it still is a good idea to use some caution.

Re:Suckage

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

The animation sequences were too damn short and the action scenes were about on par with "The Littlest Hobo". No good.

If all you were watching for was the animation sequences or the action scenes, then I guess this comment is dead-on. Of course, if all you were watching for was the animation sequences or the actions scenes, then you seriously missed the point! Max Headroom was about computer animation the way that Star Wars is about space flight; that is, just as a hook. The key to Max, the whole essence of the show, was its cynical-yet-so-true jaded view of Big Media and the world we were rapidly approaching, wherein the sheep of the world abdicate their power to the TV... Hmmm. A lot like this world, actually.

Max Headroom might have been "twenty minutes into the future" but it was also twenty years ahead of its time.