The Drink Tank 029 (2005).pdf

Starring: The Computer!

Film and automatic computation were in the same place at the dawn of the

twentieth century: each relied on hand-cranked monstrosities that had a tendency

to jam when used too quickly. Both also showed signs that they were about to

change the world. Few could have known how much each would inl uence the

other as time passed. While i lm hit the limelight (literally) much faster than

computers, computers would quickly become a favorite subject and character in

many movies, starting with the work of George Melies.

Perhaps the reason why

so many computers have ended

up with roles on screen is that

early science i ction authors so

frequently used them in their

stories. E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Grey

Lensman featured a computer

so large and hot that it required

a piece of Antarctica to cool it.

There were dozens of computers of

various types in the olden days of

Sensational Stories and the like,

and since many of the i lmmakers

who began to make i lms in the

1950s and 60s were science i ction

readers from youth, it’s easy to see

why so many computers began to

pop up as props and set pieces.

The Computer as Prop

with lights stuck in them and tape drives

that spun as the computer was “thinking”.

This image continues playing even today on

television and in many non-science i ction

i lms that used large computers as a plot

device (with Jumping Jack Flash. being

of the big offenders of the 1980s) From

Forbidden Planet (MGM, 1956) to many of

the James Bond i lms, these fake computers

were very cheap and easy to construct.

Some i lms wanted a better

sense of reality and used real computers

for texture. Our Man Flint (Fox, 1965),

starring James Coburn, features pieces

of the SAGE computer and a large bank

of IBM tape drives. A similar set-up was

used in the time travel preparation scene in

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

(New Line Cinema, 1997). The Angry Red

Planet (MGM, 1960) featured the Burroughs

ElectroData computer that is currently on

display in visible storage at The Computer

History Museum.

With the Explosion of

science i ction i lm in the 1950s,

we began to see computers

appear in the background…well,

sort of. At i rst, spaceships were

populated with pieces of plywood

The Electrodata in The Angry Red Planet

Even the blaxploitation classic

Scream, Blackula, Scream (MGM, 1973)

featured close-ups of an IBM 7000-series

computer which was being used in the

creation of a new monster.

with younger hobbyists. Films such War

Games (MGM/UA, 1983), Weird Science

(Universal, 1985), and Electric Dreams

(Warner Bros., 1984) all feature high school

or college kids using computers to do all

sorts of whacky things, like trying to blow

up the world, direct

a satellite to cause

a house to ill with

popcorn, or to

create a beautiful

woman. The image

of the teen ‘hacker’

was solidiied with

these ilms and the

image continues

through to today.

Even today,

computers play

a very signiicant

part of the tone

for many ilms.

Apple ][s and TRS-

80s in The Royal

Tennenbaums

As time

passed, computers

started to play

larger and larger

roles before

actually becoming

characters. In

Walter Lang’s ilm

Desk Set (Fox,

1957), Katherine

Hepburn and

Spencer Tracy

face off over

the integration

of a computer,

EMERAC, into

the corporate

library. While the

computer has a

big board which is

reminiscent of the number calling service

used at most pharmacies, the computer

really isn’t a character. The ilm, while sold

as a quirky story of ofice romance, really

dealt with the perception that computers

would put great numbers of people out of

work. The result is funny, and it shows that

people were beginning to think of computers

as a part of the future, and not just on space

ships.

(Buena Vista, 2002) and the Mac SE in The

House of Sand and Fog (Dreamworks, 2003)

as set pieces set the ilms at a speciic point

in time. In the rave ilm Groove (Columbia

Tri-Star, 2000), a cop and a man posing

as the owner of a new internet start-up

are touring an ofice full of original IBM

PCs. The cop says ‘you’ll probably want to

upgrade these computers, too’, which led the

character to know that the gig was up.

The Computer As Character

In the 1980s, computers became more

and more visible in ilm, and more identiied

As the 1960s rolled on, we were treat-

ed to more ilms that used computers as

more than just another prop on a set. Ro-

bots were irst, arriving in 1897 with Georgs

Melies’ The Clown and the Automaton. They

Katherine Hepburn with Desk Set’s EMERAC

began showing up as friendly helpers to

young heroes with nothing but their wits

and a highly sophisticated piece of ma-

chinery to defend themselves. Robots were

much easier to connect with than traditional

computers, but by the late 1960s, a compu-

ter became, arguably, the central character

in a ilm. The ilm was Stanley Kubrick’s

2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner Bros., 1968)

and the computer was HAL.

The HAL 9000, loosely based on the

research surrounding IBM’s Stretch, was

a self-aware computer which sustained

life on the USS Discovery. HAL begins to

malfunction, something no 9000-series

computer has ever done, and as it becomes

apparent that he is not working properly, he

starts to defend himself by killing the crew.

There are many example as to the ways that

Kubrick made HAL more human so that he

could be the central character. HAL spoke

instead of using a traditional keyboard, and

he used human syntax and had a real voice.

In another way, HAL was made to be more

than human, and in fact, was almost God-

like in that he decided who lived and died.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

shows a computer playing evil not out of

self-preservation, which was HAL’s greatest

crime, but out of lust for life. Proteus uses

an electronic voice as well, that of Robert

Vaughn.

Another, very important fact is that

networks began to immerge throughout

ilms, and almost universally they were

thought of as evil. In Colossus: The Forbin

Project (Universal, 1970), Colossus is given

power over all of the US military defenses

in an effort to show the Russians that they

are incapable of attack since the

bombs are under the watchful eye

of the Computer. As Colossus

comes on-line, he detects another

computer, the Russian Guardian,

which has been built for the same

purpose. The two are linked and

when the link is broken, both

supercomputers launch missiles

towards the other country. They

are reconnected, but the computer

continues to act on the paranoia

of the situation. Perhaps the most

interesting part of the ilm is the fact that

an IBM 1620 played the role of the input

section of Colossus. The Computer History

Museum got one back up and working in

1999.

If HAL is God, then the computer

Proteus IV of Demon Seed (MGM, 1977) is

Satan himself. Proteus refuses to help the

human strip mine the oceans, claiming that

would merely help in the destruction of the

planet. Proteus has other thoughts, like

escaping his electronic prison, or getting ‘out

of the box’. Proteus comes up with a plan:

impregnate the wife of his inventor and then

escape through that child. Perhaps the irst

instance of computer rape, Demon Seed

While God and the Devil are merely

two parts, there is also the category of side-

kick. Michael Knight is the hero of the

television Knight Rider , but his car, KITT, is

his plucky, computerized vehicular partner,

voiced by William Daniels. Other computers

such as Max

from Flight of the

Navagator (Disney,

1986), also fall into

this category.

There is

also a small, but

always growing,

subgenre where a

human is imbued

with the powers

of a computer. In

The Computer

Wore Tennis Shoes

(Disney, 1969), Kurt

Russell’s character,

Knight Industries Two Thousand aka KITT from Knight

Rider’s console. Below: Shots from Tron

whose personality

is transferred into

a giant computer

and continually

replays scenes from

Casablanca.

A famous

early exploration of

computer generated

ilm graphics for a

computer world was

the Disney ilm Tro n

(Disney, 1980). In

Tron, a User, Kevin

Flynn, is brought

into the computer

by the Master

Control Program,

or MCP. As Clu,

he ights alongside

Yori and others

in an attempt to

overthrow the MCP

and install Tron, a

security program,

in its place. The

world that the ilm

inhabits is amazing,

with giant loating

tanks and light

cycles that leave

walls behind. At

times, it seems

almost as if it were

written to be made into a video game, of

which it later spawned several.

Dexter Riley, is in the computer lab one

night when it is struck by lightening. This

somehow fuses him and the computer,

giving him all sorts of information…

including all the rumpus on what the local

crime lord, played by Cesar Romero.

The Computer as Setting

Once we have seen that computers

can become characters, it is not that big a

leap to use a computer as the full setting

for a ilm. It took a large step in the

development of science iction for that to be

possible. That invention was cyberspace, a

concept used to great effect by author such

as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

While there have been many ilms that

have used simulations of life in computers,

Star Trek: The Next Generation featured

the Holodeck, a computer generated

environment that the humans on the show

were able to interact with. The concept

of donning helmets to enter cyberspace is

almost ancient, dating back to the 1960s, at

roughly the same time serious research into

helmet-based systems seriously began. The

Lawnmower Man (New Line, 1992), starring

Jeff Fahey, also allowed a real character

to enter cyberspace and become more

intelligent. The cybersetting is much more

interesting than the real setting in this case.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1985), a

Canadian / PBS co-production, features

a non-conformist, played by Raul Julia,

Perhaps the best known case of a

ilm where the world is merely an illusion

of ones and zeroes is the Matrix series

(Warner Bros., 1999-2003). The Matrix is a

computer-generated world that is powered

by, and populated with, human beings.

Most people live their entire lives there

and don’t know it. This allows for those

who escape to pass through the Matrix

and perform acts that are far beyond the

possibilities of those who are trapped within.

Calculating God

by Robert J. Sawyer

I like Robert J. Sawyer quite a

bit. I’ve never actively disliked any of

his books, though some have been hard

for me to get into. Of the irst ive that I

read, they fall into the following catago-

ries: Great opening and build with a

scattershot ending (Frameshift), Slow

Opening with a strong build and a fairly

average inish (Terminal Experiment),

Good Opening, slow middle and average

inish (Hominids), and Brilliant open-

ing with periods of weak logic before an

ultimately unsatisfying inish (FlashFor-

ward). The one that doesn’t have the

weak inish is Calculating God.

The story is pretty simple: an alien

comes to the Royal Ontario Museum and

starts to ask questions. It’s very simple,

but it works. The Alien we deal most

with, Hollus, is an intelligent character

and at times feels completely foreign,

though at others he feels like he’s just

another Spock. In fact, there’s a portion

of the book where they watch Star Trek

and Hollus keeps complaining that the

aliens don’t look alien enough. A stan-

dard complaint that is.

The best moments come when we

are looking at the aliens dealing with hu-

mans, both positively and in the negative.

The main human in the story Tom Jeri-

cho (same name as one of Enigma’s main

characters) who is helping Hollus’ re-

search and at the same time dyign of mu-

seum lung: lung cancer caused by work-

ing with ancient dust at the museum. It’s

a really serious issue and it’s more and

more concerning to me as I keep work-

ing at my Museum. Sadly, I didn’t really

feel much for Tom and his dying, though

it did make the ending of hte book a very

spiritual and interior series of moments.

It actually seems that Sawyer, who has

championed a non-spirtiualist world view

in his other books, wanted to break free.

The computer as setting is still being

explored. The UPN animated series Game

Over was about the life of video game

characters when they are not being played.

This may be the irst instance of a television

series that takes place completely in a

computer world

As computer graphic technologies

improve, so will their application in ilm.

The long-standing concept of ilms created

entirely on computer using the manipulated

images of real actors (as in Mickey Spillane’s

Mike Danger comic book series) has come up

again and again. While ilms such as Forest

Gump (Paramount, 1994) have used this

technique to a limited degree, there is talk

that we are just two years away from being

able to have a feature ilm starring the image

and voices of Marilyn Monroe and James

Dean on the screen together. As technology

speeds up, so will the stories that make use

of these enigmatic machines.

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