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A list of movies about hacking

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Re: A list of movies about hacking

#34
post #18

D.A.R.Y.L. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088979/

As a young nerdy kid, this movie had such an impact on my at the time I saw it. I pretended I was a robot for months afterwards :)

And the SR71 makes an appearance. This movie still inspires me. Reminds me, I should show it to my son... is 5 too young?

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#35
post #6

Seeing this list inspired me to write about the list I keep for the books I read, many of them cyberpunk/scifi. After reading so many of these types of books, you can't help notice their elements in other media. It's interesting in seeing the print inspirations for many of these movies. The term "The Matrix" was first coined in William Gibson's Neuromancer and considered to be the seminal Cyberpunk novel, even predat…

And for newer stuff, Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon (2003) and 2 sequels really hit the spot. It's hard to find good gritty cyberpunk these days.

And it's not that old works are bad, just that some of the tech misses distract and take you out of the atmosphere sometimes. Like on Star Trek, when they have to physically deliver email to people on holodiscs.

I'd also note that Asimov's Robot series are great if you like hardboiled type stuff - not cyberpunk, but has a slightly similar ambiance.

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#36
I'm going to go against the grain and say: don't watch these.

Or rather, don't prioritize watching these. Try to balance out movies and books related to your profession or hobby with those outside of it.

The world already has enough stereotypical geeks loving Ghost in the Shell, Star Wars and Star Trek, it needs more geeks having an interest in what "regular people" do and like.

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#37
post #6

Seeing this list inspired me to write about the list I keep for the books I read, many of them cyberpunk/scifi. After reading so many of these types of books, you can't help notice their elements in other media. It's interesting in seeing the print inspirations for many of these movies. The term "The Matrix" was first coined in William Gibson's Neuromancer and considered to be the seminal Cyberpunk novel, even predat…

Just read Neuromancer this summer. One of the benefits of renting random people's places are the libraries you run across; that was a great read (though somehow disturbing, mystical/mind blowing, and hollow inducing all at the same time).

The two other books in the series (Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) are both great as well, but I found that the first had the most magic.

In the same vein, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is great as well. Its essentially a parody of cyberpunk but hilariously well written.

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#38

No AKIRA? I thought this one is pretty acclaimed, and frequently hailed as a cyberpunk classic

The plot doesn't really have much to do with computers? It was perhaps the first anime to make a splash in the US, and it is worth seeing, but I don't think I'd use "hacker" or "cyberpunk" to describe it.

Well, Blade Runner or Inception are no different.

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#39

This doesn't appear to be so much a curated list of much-watch movies so much as a list of all movies about hacking ever. Here is my curated list of movies ever hacker and cyberpunk enthusiast must watch: * Sneakers * Ghost in the Shell * Tron Why is Tron there? Because the screenwriter loosely based the character around her husband. Who was her husband? Alan Kay. Tron's protagonist is Alan Kay.

I think WarGames really should be on the list. It's old, yes, but it did influence a lot of us that were in that first generation of kids growing up with computers at home (though not many homes). It definitely captures a moment of time worth thinking about.

My two bits. (I very much agree with Tron.)

Re: A list of movies about hacking

#40
post #36

I'm going to go against the grain and say: don't watch these. Or rather, don't prioritize watching these. Try to balance out movies and books related to your profession or hobby with those outside of it. The world already has enough stereotypical geeks loving Ghost in the Shell, Star Wars and Star Trek, it needs more geeks having an interest in what "regular people" do and like.

That is rather offensively narrow-minded to think that "regular people" don't also enjoy those those movies. That simply having a job or hobby related to STEM somehow does not make you a regular person.
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