Short Circuits: Computers in the Movies of the 1980s and 1990s, Part 2
After the early wave of movies depicting personal computers, the later '80s were dominated by anthropomorphic machines, and how they might become sentient. The brief glimpse of the future in The Terminator (1984) depicts in no uncertain terms that the "singularity" will herald the beginning of a fight for our own survival against Artificial Intelligence. After that movie's many knockoffs and sequel, robots quickly became passé once the '90s roll in; the movies would now become obsessed with virtual reality.
Blade Runner
1982, USA, d. Ridley Scott, 1h58m, *****
Who's In It: Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, James Hong, M. Emmett Walsh, and Sean Young
In the acid rain-drenched industrial megalopolis of Los Angeles 2019, synthetic humans called Replicants do dangerous and menial jobs, freeing humans for the relative bodily safety of rampant unemployment. But Replicants have a tendency to run away and hide out as humans when they find out they're scheduled to be deactivated, and "blade runners" hunt them down for bounty.
Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi noir has long divided audiences on whether it is "style over substance." It's true that the spectacular production design is the main reason it remains influential 40 years later. But Blade Runner also introduced mainstream audiences to the fictional Voight-Kampff Test - a psychological test to uncover the imperceptible differences between human thought and artificial emotions - and made them wonder "what if androids dreamed?"
D.A.R.Y.L.
1985, USA, d. Simon Wincer, 1h40m, ***
Who's In It: Michael McKean (!), Mary Beth Hurt
A 12-year-old boy is found on a remote mountaintop after being dropped off by a scientist whose car is pursued to a fiery demise by military helicopters. He is taken into town and placed into foster care; he can't remember his identity. To the astonishment of everyone, he can do mathematics on a Ph.D. level, and can master everything from video games to baseball to flying an aircraft in a manner of minutes.
Daryl is actually a Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform, and the scientists who created him are morbidly thrilled that one of their own went rogue and set him loose into society. They've collected incredible data! The only problem is that the government is only interested in killing machines not cute children, so they order his termination. D.A.R.Y.L. is ultimately a fluffy family movie worthy of Disney and is less interested in the scientific or ethical ramifications of a machine that thinks it's human than what it would be like to try to raise a "perfect" kid.
Short Circuit 2
1988, USA, d. Kenneth Johnson, 1h50m, **1/2
Who's In It: Michael McKean (again!), Fisher Stevens
In the script for the first Short Circuit (1986), Newton Crosby was meant to be a socially inept programmer who only learns to 'be human' by experiencing his robot's chaotic exuberance for life. But when the producers insisted on casting inescapably affable Steve Guttenberg in the role, the more serious side of the drama got overpowered by Johnny Five's romp around the military-industrial complex.
The rushed scheduling of its sequel before the script was finished spooked Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy out of returning, leaving Fisher Stevens' unfortunate Indian accent and brownface as the new lead. While Short Circuit 2 still mainly exists for Johnny Five to make cheap pop culture gags, it also features more satirical bite than the original as it skewers corporate America's commodification and theft of intellectual property, and preference for lower quality products at greater quantities of scale. Ironically, this shows in the movie's own production values: Toronto is not quite convincing as New York, and Los Locos are the most embarrassingly whimsical gang outside of West Side Story.
Hardware
1990, UK, d. Richard Stanley, 1h33m, ***1/2
Who's In It: Dylan McDermott, Lemmy (yes, from Motörhead), the voice of Iggy Pop, Mark Northover (Burglekutt from Willow), and William Hootkins (Porkins from Star Wars)
One of the best Terminator knockoffs, Hardware takes place in a Mad Max dystopian wasteland where humans just barely survived the war against machines. The movie's resourceful production design visualizes the future for a fraction of a Hollywood budget, and the murderous Mark 13 robot's ability to rebuild itself predates the liquid T-1000, and with practical special effects.
Mindwarp
1991, USA, d. Steve Barnett, 1h36m, **
Who's In It: Bruce Campbell, Angus Scrimm
In a post-apocalyptic world, the wealthiest hide underground and spend 98% of their lives plugged into a virtual reality to make their living nightmare ebb away. Machines of The Matrix take note: if you want humans to stay "jacked in", simply let them wake up once a day into a sterile nursing home environment with only green nutrient paste to eat... Humans will head right back into the simulation for gluttony without weight gain and fantasy without consequences.
Mindwarp features only a few scenes in the setting of virtual reality; after its protagonist decides she wants to see the real world she is exiled into the lowest budget Mad Max knockoff you'll ever see. The film was the first produced by the horror magazine Fangoria, so it features buckets of blood, acid and green goop. Suitable for drunken parties only.
The Lawnmower Man
1992, USA, d. Brett Leonard, 2h21m (Director's Cut), ***
Who's In It: Pierce Brosnan (his American breakthrough role), Jeff Fahey, Dean Norris
Dr. Angelo is a VR developer whose current research for a clandestine military organization called "The Shop" involves combining VR and psychoactive drugs to increase the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees to make them killing machines. One of them escapes, augmented reality turning it aggressive against the Army forces sent to subdue it. After the chimp is killed in front of church gardener Jobe, the researchers decide to continue the project on the intellectually disabled man they wittingly traumatized; their project could give Jobe the IQ he needs to be a functional adult.
Stephen King famously sued to get his name removed from this film. It's truly bizarre how little the short story has in common with this movie, and yet the movie also includes elements ripped off from a dozen other King novels. "The Shop" and Jobe's eventual powers are straight out of Firestarter. There's a sadistic priest, a comic book loving simpleton outcast, and we spend a long time learning about all of the townies' lives, just for them to get mowed down (not sorry) in the movie's big finale.
It's fun watching Jeff Fahey transform from Harry Dunne to Fabio (and immediately lose his virginity to the hot widow with the thick lawn). It's less fun to watch Pierce Brosnan as a scientist with a bad ethics track record have a mid-life crisis of conscience, dress like a New Kid on the Block, and ignore his wife to play video games with the kid next door (knowing full well the kid's gonna get beaten by his abusive dad for not finishing his homework).
The Lawnmower Man had 30 minutes of story purged from it when it was released. A Director's Cut now exists restoring all of this; now it is both a deeply weird movie with little action that eventually reveals itself to be a spin on "Frankenstein", and also a poorly paced one. Despite the shagginess, it's inarguably fascinating. Writer/director Brett Leonard was clearly interested in tackling the science fiction ethics of his story when most movies of this era were only interested in the action.
There is an interesting concept in the idea that virtual reality in combination with drugs can be used to rewire brains, unlock potential, and teach new skills and behaviors. Virtual reality bleeds into real life and becomes Augmented Reality. Operating under the oft-cited myth that humans only use 10% of our brains, we could be rewired to use that potential to soak up knowledge like a sponge, and perhaps become addicted to absorbing knowledge.
This movie also features a... unique approach to cybersex. The CGI is not good, but instead of aiming for photo-realism, this movie leans into psychedelia. Tired of having normal sex limited by the poor range of motion of aging human joints? VR takes it to the next level, where bodies can swirl around and melt into each other in a Mobius strip of infinite mutual penetration.
Arcade
1993, USA, d. Albert Pyun, 1h35m, ***
Who's In It: John de Lancie, baby Seth Green, and grown-up Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story)
Alex and Nick, like typical teens in 1993, spend their afternoons after school in the local arcade "Dante's Inferno" which has the dark, smoke-filled atmosphere of a Berlin leather bar. One day, corporate shill John de Lancie arrives with a new virtual reality game where you must rollerblade through a trap-laden labyrinth while your AI opponent ominously assures you that death here is real. Desperate for game sales, he sends the kids off with free home gaming systems, and they all become stay-at-home zombies addicted to the game that really kills.
Arcade is straight-to-video cheese elevated by the low-budget auteur Albert Pyun. Since his untimely death in 2022, the Hawaiian-born director has been rightly celebrated for his talent for turning in effective action films with visual panache on tiny budgets and tight shooting schedules. Arcade's early '90s CG game environments are a far cry from Tron - but hold up surprisingly well to mainstream-budgeted The Lawnmower Man - and are faithful to the era of games like "Duke Nukem". While an evil AI and the corporation that will casually unleash its dangers onto children's minds are the antagonists de rigueur, Arcade also depicts arcades as a healthy social scene for teens which home gaming systems will casually destroy.
To be continued in 2-3 weeks when we will be surveying a single year, 1995, the year cyberpunk invaded Hollywood, and five of the most well-known movies about hackers and virtual reality were released within a period of just six months...