"It can only be attributable to human error." |
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Technology. It's the greatest! We've advanced insanely over the past couple decades thanks to it. We can keep track of our kids wherever they go, we can pay our bills without mailing anything, and we can even break up with our partners without seeing or hearing their voices! Just send a text message or an IM saying, "sry but u suk lol" and everything is done for you. What fantastical, magical times we live in. I mean, technology only helps us, right?
Well, our movies might nudge us and beg to differ. Technology can bring great advances to our society, but also strange and perhaps dangerous factors that before did not exist. Cameras watching you wherever you go, people with tasers so that they can mug you, and freaking laser guns! Are they around yet? WELL THEY WILL BE. Just you wait, it's gonna be right on the hood of that invisible, floating car.
The most infamous example of technology gone awry in the movie world is, of course, the non-living entity HAL. He was in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, 
I've always liked T2 better than the original. |
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directed by Stanley Kubrick. HAL is the artificially intelligent super-computer than controls a space ship in the (then) future. He goes cyber-crazy and kills some of the passengers.
This started a theme with the sci-fi genre of technology becoming aware of itself and causing havoc and mayhem. Because when you realize you exist, well, you go on a rampage right?
Another extremely successful series to use this motif were the TERMINATOR films. Not only were the main storylines in all three films about trying to stop SKYNET, another self-aware-computer-crazy-thing-that-wants-to-kill-humanity, BUT it also added a more human element. Androids.
An android is a robot meant to look human. And for all you geeks, cyborgs are enhanced humans. So hush! You had Ahnuld as the first Terminator, and in T2 you had Robert Patrick play a superior Terminator, one who could form into anything because his body was made of liquid metal.
THE MATRIX series went one step deeper into the realm of technology GONE BAD. Not only 
Happy Anniversary James. Thanks James, you've always been a pal. |
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do you have killer, squid robots, but you also have viruses with nasty demeanors. I'm about to ruin the MATRIX for the one person (Bob from Boise) who hasn't seen/knows about the MATRIX's storyline, so Bob, close your eyes for five minutes. Since the "world" was one big, virtual reality playground, and not actually real, the viruses looked human to us. As did other programs. Can this actually happen? Who knows! But Hugo Weaving was crucial to that trilogy, so who cares!
Also in THE MATRIX, the machines used humans as energy sources. Is this possible? Maybe. Are we actually just little batteries to be used in ginormous digital cameras, so that the machines can pose in their bathroom mirror and throw gang signs for their CyborgSpace.com pages?! The idea is terrifying. But doesn't our art reflect who we are? It shows our society in the present, in the past, and maybe even its future. So beware boys and girls, be very wary. Your toaster might be sizing you up for it's iPod.
Also, this is my 30th column. Go me.
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| James Shafie |
James Shafie is an avid watcher of movies of all sorts, but the horror genre is closest to his heart. He loves to read and is addicted to music, mostly metal and it’s thousands of sub-genres. He was once fired by Blockbuster, which we see as a strong character trait.
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