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More Than 20 Years of the Web on the Big Screen
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "WSJ.com has compiled clips from a dozen movies over the past 23 years that depict the internet, with varying degrees of accuracy. Among the selections: WarGames, Sneakers, .com for Murder, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The Matrix Reloaded used real Linux code, while Mission: Impossible had the improbable email addresses Job@Book of Job and Max@Job 3:14. In a related article, WSJ.com reviews some of the more-absurd Hollywood conventions when it comes to the web. Harry Knowles, of Ain't It Cool News, says, 'The thing that always gets me is watching people send emails. You click "send" and the entire document begins to fold into an envelope and disappear into the screen. I tend to send around 300 to 400 emails a day, and that would drive me insane.'"
Subject says it all.
Trolling is a art,
The Web != The Internet
Also, just to further nitpick, I don't think Wargames even had the internet in it -- he found WOPR by dialing it up directly.
As a narrative device it's lame, okay, but frankly I'll take that over the postmodern delayed deus ex machine of the geek's solution to a technical problem: Oooh, our brainwizard has been working away steadily at a problem all plot long, and now that we're ten minutes shy of the ending, she's finally broken through the security system/discovered the answer to the riddle/broken the code. The writers may as well have Geordi adjust the trust old modulation on the phase transponder, it's the same plot device.
Lately we're up to the level found in the funnies (other than FoxTrot): names get dropped. Ooh, she "googled" that term! That's about how far we've gotten with the Web in movies and TV... and the brain dead comic strip "B.C." for that matter.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
All true geeks use a Model M.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Actually, in fairness to the film, if you watch the special edition/director's cut that whole part makes a LOT more sense than the theatrical release which outraged us all so very much.
In the director's cut, they add back enough footage to show that the communications of the aliens is sound/radio wave, and that he (Goldblum's character) had figured out the way their communications worked.
He didn't write a computer binary virus on his Mac and upload it to the aliens. He used his Mac which had been outfitted with signal processing gear, and transmitted a series of signals which acted on their system in the way a virus would operate on a computer. So the bar could be the same as an upload status -- "this much more signal to transmit".
As much as I thought it was a travesty when I saw the theatrical release, I thought the expanded version's explaination was plausible.
Likewise, if you want to see a film that made no sense in theatrical release but becomes clear in extended release -- The Abyss is a good example. SO much of what was cut ouf ot he theatrical release caused it to become muddled and confusing. The extended release made sense.
In both cases, the films were somewhat crippled by the way theye were initially released to the public, but SO MUCH BETTER in a director's cut.
Anyway, just some musings from a film geek.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are you kidding me? Every night on CSI they zoom in 100x on digital photo and are able to make the photo clear as an original, with no pixelation. People have no idea what's possible with computers. They just assume that everything they see on television could really happen.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Remember, that film took place in the System 7 days--the Mac OS *was* the virus. What you were seeing was the installation progress bar. :-)
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