Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Films about virtual reality

moriareviews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 56 posts

Re: Films about virtual reality

#41

Post by squokko »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The big breakthrough work was The Lawnmower Man (1992), a conceptually absurd film where scientist Pierce Brosnan uses VR to somehow turn an intellectually handicapped gardener into a psychic genius. What made The Lawnmower Man a hit was the ground-breaking computer graphic effects used to depict the virtual environment. An even sillier work was the sequel Lawnmower Man II: Beyond Cyberspace/Lawnmower Man II: Jobe’…

Interesting to watch Lawnmower Man alongside Being There (where an intellectually handicapped gardener is merely perceived to be a genius)

Re: Films about virtual reality

#42

Post by stevenwoo »

atombender wrote: post #26
flanbiscuit wrote: post #12

Love this post. Adding a whole bunch of things to my watch list. One thing I don't see mentioned is the TV mini series "Wild Palms". I remember watching that as it debuted on TV back in '93. Haven't seen it since though. I remember Kim Cattrall being in it and I remember VR being a big part of the plot. In looking it up I had no idea that Ryuichi Sakamoto created the music for it. Here's a trailer for it. It looks so…

And William Gibson has a small cameo as himself. I remember the show as being quite good, but I suspect it's not aged well.

That’s interesting because he just had a cameo in third season of Upload as himself, too.

Re: Films about virtual reality

#43

Post by stevenwoo »

They acknowledge the later developments in television as well but left out some other early literature including Philip K Dick, off top of my head the wife/vr religion subplot dropped from Blade Runner adaptation and Samuel Delaney (if one imagines how the sockets in Nova could have worked)

Re: Films about virtual reality

#44

Post by flanbiscuit »

stevenwoo wrote: post #42
atombender wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And William Gibson has a small cameo as himself. I remember the show as being quite good, but I suspect it's not aged well.

That’s interesting because he just had a cameo in third season of Upload as himself, too.

Took me a moment to recognize him when I watched that episode.

Re: Films about virtual reality

#45

Post by samatman »

arethuza wrote: post #4

Not VR, but I really enjoyed Devs : "The box contains us. The box contains everything. And inside the box, there's another box."

Great title as well. It really is about devs, in a way. But then at the end you remember that it's the same director as Ex Machina.

Re: Films about virtual reality

#46

Post by dcminter »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #12

Love this post. Adding a whole bunch of things to my watch list. One thing I don't see mentioned is the TV mini series "Wild Palms". I remember watching that as it debuted on TV back in '93. Haven't seen it since though. I remember Kim Cattrall being in it and I remember VR being a big part of the plot. In looking it up I had no idea that Ryuichi Sakamoto created the music for it. Here's a trailer for it. It looks so…

I was mesmerised by the trailers but never watched it for some reason. I know it can never live up to my imagined version! I daren't even watch that trailer :)

Re: Films about virtual reality

#47

Post by EvanAnderson »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #12

Love this post. Adding a whole bunch of things to my watch list. One thing I don't see mentioned is the TV mini series "Wild Palms". I remember watching that as it debuted on TV back in '93. Haven't seen it since though. I remember Kim Cattrall being in it and I remember VR being a big part of the plot. In looking it up I had no idea that Ryuichi Sakamoto created the music for it. Here's a trailer for it. It looks so…

Wild Palms was a real disappointment from a sci-fi perspective. I felt like VR was just a "tech the tech" kind of adjunct instead of actually being integral to the story. Other generic technologies or mysticism could have been plugged-in and it wouldn't have made any difference.

Re: Films about virtual reality

#48

Post by croisillon »

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The big breakthrough work was The Lawnmower Man (1992), a conceptually absurd film where scientist Pierce Brosnan uses VR to somehow turn an intellectually handicapped gardener into a psychic genius. What made The Lawnmower Man a hit was the ground-breaking computer graphic effects used to depict the virtual environment. An even sillier work was the sequel Lawnmower Man II: Beyond Cyberspace/Lawnmower Man II: Jobe’…

i loved the first one and was so hyped for the sequel, what a disappointment

Re: Films about virtual reality

#50

Post by beebeepka »

nox101 wrote: post #13
andsoitis wrote: post #2

> The big breakthrough work was The Lawnmower Man (1992), a conceptually absurd film where scientist Pierce Brosnan uses VR to somehow turn an intellectually handicapped gardener into a psychic genius. What made The Lawnmower Man a hit was the ground-breaking computer graphic effects used to depict the virtual environment. An even sillier work was the sequel Lawnmower Man II: Beyond Cyberspace/Lawnmower Man II: Jobe’…

Lawnmower Man is probably the strangest license ever. IIUC the story is licensed from Stephen King. That story has absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the movie. It's entirely about some person who morphs into a lawnmower. Has zero VR. There's a like 3 second VR scene in the movie of Jobe becoming a lawnmower but otherwise, zero connection. I guess the director or the producer just used it as an excuse to g…

It's been what, 30 years, but even the ending has way more cgi/vr than 3 seconds. The movie may not have been made had they not used the name of King's short story, which isn't all that good to begin with.

That said, I think the Johnny Quest remake had plenty of vr. It was pretty cool for its time.

Post reply on HN